'The Gateway' Trailer: Shea Whigham V Frank Grillo, Dawn Of B-Movie Action

Shea Whigham and Frank Grillo have both seen their fair share of B-movie action throughout their careers. Now they're about to square off in a roundabout way in the new crime thriller The Gateway.

Shea Whigham plays a gruff social worker with a troubled past. But instead of letting this send him into a downward spiral, he's using his tragic history to do some good by trying to keep kids in troubled homes from facing the kind of woes he couldn't escape. While helping one of his clients (Olivia Munn) hold on to her daughter, he's forced into a confrontation with her husband who's recently released on parole and looking to settle a score for his drug-dealing boss (Frank Grillo). Watch The Gateway trailer below to see how this all shakes out.

Honestly, this doesn't look half-bad, but it still has that direct-to-video vibe about it. Maybe that's just because it doesn't have any big stars in the lead roles. If this were playing at a film festival, it might get some more hype around it, especially with how much cinephiles seem to love Shea Whigham as a character actor. Here, he gets to shine in a lead role, even if it feels like a role that maybe Liam Neeson should be taking at this stage in his career.

So maybe the biggest draw of The Gateway is seeing Frank Grillo in this hat:

Look at that stupid hat. What the hell is going on here? And then just as you're maybe getting used to the hat, suddenly Bruce Dern shows up. Between this and Christopher Lloyd showing up and kicking ass in Nobody, maybe it's time for more geriatric actors to start picking up guns and lighting up some punks.

The Gateway is helmed by music video director Michele Civetta which he co-wrote with Andrew Levitas and Alex Felix Bendaña. The rest of the cast includes Taryn Manning, Mark Boone Junior, and young Taegen Burns.

Here's the official synopsis for The Gateway:

Parker (Shea Whigham), a down-on-his-luck social worker finds himself in over his head when he tries to protect his client (Olivia Munn) from her recently paroled husband (Zach Avery). Can Parker save the family from the violent threat of the maniacal drug dealer (Frank Grillo) and his crew, desperate to reclaim their priceless stash?

The Gateway opens up in select theaters and on VOD starting on September 3, 2021, and quickly hits digital, Blu-ray, and DVD on September 7.