An updated version of Steely Dan’s first single, “Dirty Work”, highlights the premiere trailer for James Gunn’s next supervillain movie Suicide squad.
The original track dates back to 1972 I can’t buy emotion, exemplifying the soft and heavy sound of the keyboard of the band’s debut LP. But it is also an oddity in its catalog: led by vocalist David Palmer, it is one of the few classic Steely Dan songs not sung by Donald Fagen.
The version here seems to have been tuned for the purpose of a high-octane movie trailer, with the electric piano and stacked harmonies eventually muffled by huge strings and digital percussion.
It is an appropriate choice, thematically: The film, a semi-sequence from 2016 Suicide squad, follows a group of convicts gathered by the government to complete life-threatening missions in exchange for lighter periods of imprisonment.
“You know the business – complete the mission successfully, you get 10 years from your sentence,” explains Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), leader of the Task Force’s X program. “You fail to follow my orders anyway and I detonate the explosive device at the base of your skull.”
The trailer shows the mix of the upcoming censored audacity film and modern superhero explorations, balancing explosions and fast-paced action sequences with jokes about eating “a big bag of sticks”. Watch the clip below.
The film, which hits theaters and HBO Max on August 6, also stars Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Joel Kinnaman, Jai Courtney, Pete Davidson and the voice of Sylvester Stallone among his star cast.