Matt Damon and Adam Dri­ver throw down the gaunt­let in The Last Duel trailer

Up to this point, Rid­ley Scott​’s most excit­ing work of the year was the steady trick­le of on-set pho­tos from his Guc­ci dra­ma with Lady Gaga, but that changes today. Though that film will hit US the­aters in Novem­ber, he’ll first reen­ter mul­ti­plex­es come Octo­ber with his medieval epic The Last Duel, the first trail­er for which appeared online just this morning.

The peri­od piece takes us back to the 14^th cen­tu­ry in France, where the feu­dal sys­tem of nobles, knights, and squires enforced a rigid social order. The hon­or code brings about tragedy when the gal­lant Jean de Car­rouges (Matt Damon) accus­es his liege Jacques Le Gris (Adam Dri­ver) of rap­ing his wife (Jodie Com­er) and demands resti­tu­tion in the form of blood.

Egged on by the Count Pierre d’Alencon (a tow­head­ed Ben Affleck, already spawn­ing memes), Jean and Jacques con­tin­ue rais­ing the stakes and impugn­ing the other’s rep­u­ta­tion, as Jacques repeat­ed­ly insists he’s an inno­cent man. The he-said-she-said sit­u­a­tion cul­mi­nates in a mano-y-mano duel to the death, though we catch glimpses of wider-scale group bat­tle as well.

For Scott com­pletists, this will push a lot of famil­iar but­tons, and not just because this film forms a rhyme with his first fea­ture The Duel­lists. The swords-and-armor action from King­dom of Heav­en, the mur­der-as-spec­ta­cle of Glad­i­a­tor, and the cre­ative facial hair of Robin Hood all com­bine to form anoth­er grey­ish, hard-bit­ten vision of the past.

Com­er makes an ear­ly impres­sion as the one to watch in the film, caught in a con­flict more com­plex than a vendet­ta between men; she must wres­tle with the truth she can­not con­vince the pub­lic is true, a quandary faced by so many women in recent years as real-life sex­u­al harass­ments have come to light. An awards push is all but assured, but first, some grass­roots crit­i­cal praise will have to kick things off.

The Last Duel comes to cin­e­mas in the UK and US on 15 October.

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