A premiere at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, Charles Officer’s latest feature Akilla’s Escape follows poet, musician, and actor Saul Williams as our title character as he navigates the criminal underworld of Toronto. After a robbery went awry, he finds himself sucked back into the turbulent violence he has fought so long to escape. With a soundtrack by Saul Williams and Massive Attack’s 3D, the first trailer has now landed ahead of a June 11 release.
Christopher Schobert said in his TIFF review, “There is a palpable sense of exhaustion and an air of dread over nearly every scene in Akilla’s Escape. It’s no wonder that despite the legalization of marijuana in Canada, Toronto-based drug dealer Akilla Brown is desperately trying to leave the trade. After all, in the film’s first thirty minutes, Brown has watched as a man is hacked to death before his eyes, was held at gunpoint, and was forced to knock out said gunman with a shocking act of quick-thinking. Meanwhile, his decision to exit the dealer life has drawn consternation from his colleagues. And he still has to break the news to “The Greek”––who, we can infer, is most likely not going to be happy. Oh, and Akilla must also step in to save the adolescent gunman’s life before he is suffocated to death by one of the Greek’s henchmen.”
See the trailer below.
Akilla’s Escape arrives in theaters and digitally on June 11.