Josh Brolin is the latest actor to join the already fantastic cast for Paul Thomas Anderson's next film project, Inherent Vice. The rest of the cast includes Joaquin Phoenix, Owen Wilson, Benicio Del Toro, Reese Witherspoon, Jena Malone, and Martin Short. Brolin's Gangster Squad and Milk co-star Sean Penn is also in talks to join the project. I love Anderson's directing work, and this is looks like it will shape up to be a fantastic film.
The story is set in Los Angeles in 1970, and it follows a pot-smoking private detective named Doc Sportello (Phoenix) as he investigates the case of a kidnapped girl. Del Toro would play "an attorney who's always trying to help the protagonist out of trouble, though he's not an actual criminal lawyer." Witherspoon, who starred with Phoenix in Walk The Line, could end up playing the character of Shasta Fay Hepworth. Malone will play "a former drug addict who asks Sportello for help." Short's part isn't specified, but it's minor. There's no information on who Brolin will be playing in the movie, but he's definitely a great addition.
The movie is an adaptation of the book written by Thomas Pynchon. Here's a description of the book:
Part noir, part psychedelic romp... private eye Doc Sportello comes, occasionally, out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era as free love slips away and paranoia creeps in with the L.A. fog... It’s been awhile since Doc Sportello has seen his ex-girlfriend. Suddenly out of nowhere she shows up with a story about a plot to kidnap a billionaire land developer whom she just happens to be in love with. Easy for her to say. It’s the tail end of the psychedelic sixties in L.A., and Doc knows that “love” is another of those words going around at the moment, like “trip” or “groovy,” except that this one usually leads to trouble. Despite which he soon finds himself drawn into a bizarre tangle of motives and passions whose cast of characters includes surfers, hustlers, dopers and rockers, a murderous loan shark, a tenor sax player working undercover, an ex-con with a swastika tattoo and a fondness for Ethel Merman, and a mysterious entity known as the Golden Fang, which may only be a tax dodge set up by some dentists.
Source: Deadline (http://www.deadline.com/2013/05/josh-brolin-joins-p-t-andersons-inherent-vice/)