After news hit that Amazon has acquired Val, a documentary about Val Kilmer made by Val Kilmer, the streaming giant has released the official trailer, and the documentary is already shaping up to be a must-see for fans of the iconic actor. Stretching all the way back to Kilmer’s Broadway days when he played third wheel to Sean Penn and Kevin Bacon, Val contains a treasure trove of home video footage shot by Kilmer that contains a fascinating behind-the-scene glimpse of films like Top Gun, Heat, The Doors, Tombstone, and The Ghost and the Darkness.
A mix of Hollywood intrigue and humor, Val has the potential to be the vanity project to end all vanity projects, but at the same time, it also plays as a celebration of a fascinating life coupled with the emotional struggle of Kilmer’s inability to speak after his battle with throat cancer, which leads to raw, honest moments that punctuate the trailer, and presumably, the documentary itself.
Here’s the official synopsis:
For over 40 years Val Kilmer, one of Hollywood’s most mercurial and/or misunderstood actors has been documenting his own life and craft through film and video. He has amassed thousands of hours of footage, from 16mm home movies made with his brothers, to time spent in iconic roles for blockbuster movies like Top Gun, The Doors, Tombstone, and Batman Forever. This raw, wildly original and unflinching documentary reveals a life lived to extremes and a heart-filled, sometimes hilarious look at what it means to be an artist and a complex man.
Val hits theaters on July 23 and Amazon Prime Video on August 6.
(Via Amazon Prime Video)