Samuel L. Jackson and Eva Green are playing one seriously dysfunctional married couple in Just Play Dead, a new thriller from Casino Royale director Martin Campbell that turns insurance fraud into an increasingly deadly game of betrayal.
Jackson stars as Jack Wolfe, a wealthy criminal mastermind whose carefully constructed life is beginning to collapse around him.
Federal investigators are closing in, and Jack knows that arrest could expose years of embezzlement and send both him and his wife Nora to prison.
Fortunately, Jack believes he has found a solution.
Unfortunately, that solution involves dying.
Or at least appearing to.
Jack is insured for $30 million, so he proposes staging his own death and allowing Nora, played by Eva Green, to collect the enormous payout.
There is another convenient element to the plan.
Nora has a lover.
Jack intends to frame Chad for his supposed murder, giving investigators an obvious suspect while the supposedly grieving widow walks away with the money.
It sounds like the kind of elaborate criminal scheme that might work perfectly in Jack's head.
Nora, however, has plans of her own.
After years of living under her husband's control, she sees the insurance scheme as an opportunity to make Jack's fictional death considerably more permanent.
Instead of merely pretending that her husband has been murdered, Nora intends to kill him for real.
She can then blame Chad, keep the insurance money and finally free herself from Jack.
There is only one problem.
Jack is extremely difficult to outsmart.
The trailer quickly transforms their marriage into a vicious game of psychological warfare as husband and wife attempt to manipulate everyone around them — including each other.
Neither character appears particularly interested in loyalty.
Every conversation contains another lie.
Every alliance is temporary.
And every apparently successful plan seems to contain another trap waiting underneath it.
Samuel L. Jackson brings his familiar combination of confidence, menace and dark humour to Jack, a man who appears almost entertained by the increasingly elaborate conspiracy developing around him.
Eva Green provides the perfect counterweight as Nora.
Elegant, calculating and impossible to read, she initially appears to be trapped inside Jack's scheme before gradually revealing that she may be just as dangerous as her husband.
Jason Fernández plays Chad, Nora's lover and the unfortunate man selected to become the convenient suspect in Jack's disappearance.
What Chad does not initially understand is that both members of the Wolfe marriage are willing to sacrifice him if doing so helps them survive.
The increasingly complicated plot also attracts federal investigators, while Nora begins manipulating the detective assigned to the case.
By that point, virtually everyone involved is lying to everyone else.
The supporting cast includes Eoin Macken and María Pedraza, while Martin Campbell directs from a screenplay by Dan Gordon.
Campbell is particularly well suited to the material.
His career includes Casino Royale, GoldenEye and The Mask of Zorro, along with thrillers such as The Foreigner and The Protégé.
Just Play Dead appears to combine that experience with something lighter and more viciously playful.
Rather than presenting Jack and Nora's criminal schemes as a conventional serious drama, the trailer embraces the absurdity of two intelligent, manipulative people discovering that the person most capable of destroying their plan happens to be their own spouse.
That gives the film the structure of a twisted romantic battle.
Jack thinks he understands Nora.
Nora thinks she can finally escape Jack.
Chad thinks he is involved in an affair.
The federal investigators think they are solving a financial crime.
Almost everyone is wrong.
The tropical setting adds another layer of contrast.
Beautiful coastlines, luxury properties and expensive yachts surround characters whose relationships are rapidly descending into blackmail, violence and murder.
Eventually, the increasingly unstable conspiracy appears to lead everyone towards an explosive confrontation aboard a yacht, where there may finally be nowhere left for Jack and Nora to hide from each other.
The central question is no longer whether the original insurance scam will succeed.
It is which member of this spectacularly unhealthy marriage will still be standing when all of the lies finally collapse.
Jackson and Green previously appeared together in Tim Burton's Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, but Just Play Dead gives them an entirely different relationship to explore.
Here, chemistry is dangerous.
Trust is probably a mistake.
And a $30 million life insurance policy provides a very compelling reason not to turn your back on your spouse.
Just Play Dead arrives in select US cinemas on August 28, 2026, followed by an on-demand release on September 1.
Watch the trailer below.
