Shia LaBeouf is enjoying one of his periodic resurgences, thanks to some strong indie movies (The Peanut Butter Falcon is getting solid reviews and that Honey Boy trailer sure was something), and now he’s going to parlay that, uh, LaBeoufissance into a starring role alongside a legitimately famous and generally well-respected actor. As reported by Deadline, LaBeouf is going to appear in the upcoming indie crime drama After Exile, with Robert De Niro playing his father. The movie is about LaBeouf’s character getting released from prison after killing a man during a botched robbery, at which point he has to work with his ex-con father to help keep his younger brother from taking their same path and falling into a life of crime. Deadline says De Niro’s character “suffers from alcoholism and guilt” and must use his whatever he has left to save his sons, so it sounds like another classic “sad gangster” character for ol’ Bobby.
After Exile will be directed by Joshua Michael Stern, who previously made the Steve Jobs movie with Ashton Kutcher. Also, maybe now that he’s working with a famous guy like De Niro, LaBeouf can get out of these critically acclaimed/artistically interesting indie movies and go back to making dumb, big-budget blockbusters. He was always so good in those!