THE COMPANY YOU KEEP Trailer with Redford and LaBeouf

The first trailer has been released for Robert Redford's new political thriller The Company You Keep. It looks like a great movie, the story of which follows a young newspaper reporter played by Shia LaBeouf. After the arrest of a Weather Underground suspect (Susan Sarandon), LaBeouf sets out on a journey to track down another at-large member of the American radical left organization played be Redford. 

The movie has an incredible supporting cast as well that includes Julie Christie, Sam Elliott, Brendan Gleeson, Terrence Howard, Richard Jenkins, Anna Kendrick, Brit Marling, Stanley Tucci, Nick Nolte, and Chris Cooper. 

The movie looks great, and for those of you not familiar with the 1970's Weather Underground movement you can find a detailed explanation below the trailer. 

The script for the film was written by Lem Dobbs (The Limey, Haywire), and here's the synopsis for the film:

Jim Grant (Redford) is a widowed single father and attorney living in Albany. What none of his friends or clients know is that Jim was once a member of the activist/terrorist organization the Weather Underground. Wanted for robbery and the murder of a security guard, Jim has been in hiding for more than thirty years. When another former Weatherman (Susan Sarandon) turns herself in to the FBI, Ben Shepard (Shia LaBeouf), an aggressive young journalist, starts sniffing around for leads. He gradually finds his way to Jim, not suspecting that this seemingly upright citizen is himself a former militant activist. Concerned that Ben will eventually discover his true identity, Jim flees, though a safe harbour may prove difficult to find.

The Company You Keep premieres at TIFF. Watch the trailer and let us know if you think this looks like a good movie!

The Weather Underground was an American radical left organization. Originally called Weatherman, the group became known colloquially as the Weathermen although its full name, as given in official communiques, was theWeather Underground Organization or WUO. Weatherman first organized in 1969 as a faction of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) composed for the most part of the national office leadership of SDS and their supporters. Their goal was to create a clandestine revolutionary party for the violent overthrow of the US government.

With revolutionary positions characterized by Black liberation rhetoric, the group conducted a campaign of bombings through the mid-1970s, including aiding the jailbreak and escape of Timothy Leary. The "Days of Rage", their first public demonstration on October 8, 1969, was a riot in Chicago timed to coincide with the trial of theChicago Seven. In 1970 the group issued a "Declaration of a State of War" against the United States government, under the name "Weather Underground Organization" (WUO).

The bombing attacks mostly targeted government buildings, along with several banks. Most were preceded by evacuation warnings, along with communiqués identifying the particular matter that the attack was intended to protest. For the bombing of the United States Capitol on March 1, 1971, they issued a communiqué saying it was "in protest of the U.S. invasion of Laos". For the bombing of the Pentagon on May 19, 1972, they stated it was "in retaliation for the U.S. bombing raid in Hanoi". For the January 29, 1975 bombing of the United States Department of State building, they stated it was "in response to escalation in Vietnam".

The Weathermen grew out of the Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM) faction of SDS. It took its name from the lyric "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows", from the Bob Dylan song "Subterranean Homesick Blues". You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows was the title of aposition paper they distributed at an SDS convention in Chicago on June 18, 1969. This founding document called for a "white fighting force" to be allied with the "Black Liberation Movement" and other radical movements to achieve "the destruction of US imperialism and achieve a classless world: world communism".

The Weathermen apparently disintegrated, but more likely went quietly underground, after the United States reached a peace accord in Vietnam in 1973, after which the New Left declined.