Benedict Cumberbatch to test fan compassion by playing a private military contractor

Benedict Cumberbatch has attracted such a devoted fan base for his roles in Sherlock, Star Trek: Into Darkness, The Hobbit etc., it’s easy to forget he hasn’t always played the lovable rogue. But although he’s played villains in several films, and downright ugly characters in others (one of his earliest film roles was as a child rapist in Atonement), Cumberbatch will now get his hands dirty on a global political scale by wading into the controversial world of private military contractors.

Variety reports that Cumberbatch is attached to star in Blood Mountain from director Sergei Bodrov (Mongol, Seventh Son), a film about a man whose “special forces team is ambushed and killed during a covert raid, forcing him to personally escort one of the world’s most wanted terrorists over hostile terrain in order to bring him to justice.” (Sadly, this means the film isn’t an adaptation of the Mastodon album.) The two unlikely companions will then face “not only their enemies, but each other in a fight for survival.” Hopefully Bodrov doesn’t wimp out like Sherlock did during that Holmes/Moriarty fantasy sequence.