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Will 'Cogan's Trade' Reunite Andrew Dominik & Casey Affleck?

by Ethan Anderton
November 2, 2010
Source: The Playlist

Back in September we found out that The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford director Andrew Dominik would be re-teaming with the film's star Casey Affleck for another project in January. It was said the two would be collaborating on an adaptation of a Boston-set crime novel, but the story wouldn't end up actually taking place in Boston. At the time the name of the novel wasn't revealed but now The Playlist has taken notice that the rights to George V. Higgins crime novel Cogan's Trade were just acquired by Dominik yesterday. That may seem like a late acquisition for a film shooting in January, find out why it makes sense below.

The still developing adaptation of the Marilyn Monroe pseudo-biography Blonde was written by Dominik on spec before the rights were even acquired for the project, so this method of development isn't exactly unheard of. It also makes sense since the novel is said to be set in "the Balzac of the Boston underworld." Here's how the book is described on Amazon:

Crackling dialogue, mordant humor, and unremitting tension drive the suspenseful stakes of the game higher in Boston’s precarious underworld of small-time mobsters, crooked lawyers, and political gofers as George V. Higgins, the writer who boiled crime fiction harder, tracks Jackie Cogan’s career in a gangland version of law and order. For Cogan is an enforcer; and when the Mob’s rules get broken, he gets hired to ply his trade—murder. In the gritty, tough-talking pages of Higgins’s 1974 national best-seller, Cogan is called in when a high-stake card game under the protection of the Mob is heisted. Expertly, with a ruthless businessman’s efficiency, a shrewd sense of other people’s weaknesses, and a style as cold as his stare, Cogan moves with reliable precision to restore the status quo as ill-conceived capers and double-dealing shenanigans erupt into high-voltage violence.

Sounds right up the alley of both Affleck (who nailed Gone, Baby, Gone) and Dominik (who made his debut with the crime film Chopper with Eric Bana), and it definitely seems like the best option for their next gig together. Likely there will be an official announcement sometime down the road, so stay tuned for official confirmation on this adaptation soon. Though it kind of sucks that Boston will no longer be the setting, a little too many crime thrillers have had the Beantown feel to them, so this will probably be a welcome change. Sound good?

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