PARK CITY, Utah—It’s never a bad thing when Channing Tatum shows up.
Audiences in Park City spent nearly the entire running time of Saturday’s Sundance Film Festival premiere of the anti-war satire Atropia gasping and then melting into stunned laughter. The biggest reaction, however, was reserved for the A-lister’s unannounced appearance. Tatum’s secret cameo in writer-director Hailey Gates’ movie was the hottest talk of the frigid mountains following that well-received first showing.
Atropia begins with Alia Shawkat ’s Fayruz navigating life on an Iraqi street when a U.S. military convoy arrives. Tension escalates between them and the locals, and an explosion leaves Fayruz wailing over the body of a friend, who is now missing a leg. Her shriek, however, lasts a little too long, dissipating to awkward silence until the sound of walkie talkie beeps and a director says it’s time to “go again”—one of the bomb special effects didn’t detonate…