‘Fruitvale Station’ Releases Gritty First Trailer

We’ve heard the early praise for the already Oscar no-brainer flick Fruitvale Station, and now we have our first trailer for the film. We can now confidently say that it certainly doesn’t disappoint. It has the promise of Oscar written all over it, but not in the stereotypical often contrived way one would suspect. There’s no dramatic swell of music, or a quick cut-to shots of famous faces, although Octavia Spencer is in this one too.

Fruitvale Station in many ways feels like The Weinstein Brothers dark horse. Sure it’s a true story, which the academy seems to love these days, but it’s not pandering that fact to voters (at least not yet.) It remains gritty and grounded in its first trailer, which is what we expected just by going from the art-centered poster that was released last week.

The Sundance winner’s trailer features its star Michael B. Jordan, a young father living in not the best of neighborhoods as he tries to provide for his family. The film, which takes place on New Year’s Eve 2008, tells a tragic true story of a 22-year-old man Oscar Grant, who is gunned down and killed by cops after being pulled off of a rowdy BART train at the Fruitvale station. Grant’s injuries were severe enough that he died from his wounds.

The trailer hits in a very powerful way. Thankfully the production chose not to show the pivotal moment of the film, and instead chose to leave us with a series of tense moments as things are seen quickly escalating on the BART train. The impact is plenty for the tension-filled trailer.

Earlier in the year the film went on to take the Grand Jury Prize and Dramatic Audience Award during the Sundance Film Festival. Since then actor Michael B. Jordan has been earning rave reviews.

Are you excited about Fruitvale Station? Check the trailer out below: