'The Force' Movie: Matt Damon Reunites With Director James Mangold For Don Winslow Crime Thriller

Author Don Winslow's 2017 novel The Force earned Hollywood's attention before it was even published. But now the project is gaining steam, because a new report says that Matt Damon (Jason Bourne) is set to reunite with his Ford v Ferrari director James Mangold to star in an upcoming movie adaptation.

We've known for a while that Logan and Cop Land director James Mangold was attached to direct a movie version of The Force, but today, Deadline reported that Matt Damon has signed on to play the lead role of a corrupt cop. Here's how the outlet describes the plot:

Damon is attached to play Denny Malone, a NYPD detective who runs an elite crime fighting squad, but bends the law so often that he loses the line between good and evil and becomes ensnared in a pending corruption scandal. To stop the city's long-simmering racial tensions from exploding, he must reconcile the idealistic guardian he still views himself to be, with the corrupt cop he's become. He's under siege from all sides: Harlem drug gangs, the mob he's in bed with, the brother cops he's about to destroy, the mayor's office who fears what he knows and who he can implicate, the federal investigators who want to put him behind bars. But most of all, he struggles with the Faustian bargain on the table that will require him to testify against his loyal but dirty team, weighing loyalty to them over his own family.

David Mamet (Glengarry Glen Ross, The Edge) was originally hired to write the script, but Mangold has since been working with Scott Frank (Logan) on a rewrite. Ridley Scott is producing through his Scott Free Productions, so this one has a pretty impressive roster of talent attached so far. Damon has played a corrupt official before in the Oscar-winning film The Departed, but since that was over a decade ago, I'm curious to see if he'll be able to attack this project from a different angle.

Corrupt cops are a frequent subject in film and TV (Training Day, Donnie Brasco, The Shield...the list goes on), and it sounds like there's an opportunity for the filmmakers to address topics like police brutality – specifically, the untold murders of unarmed black people that been all too frequent for decades. Mangold is such a no-nonsense director and Frank such a concise, sharp writer that I'm hoping this adaptation feels like a muscular, gritty throwback, and I'm excited to see what Damon does in front of the camera.