Outlaw

Of any film could be the embodiment of absolute rubbish, ‘Outlaw’ is that film. I honestly can’t understand why Sean Bean and Bob Hoskins agreed to star in this. Or why I sat and wasted two hours of my life watching it.

Officer Bryant (Bean) returns from the Middle East to find Britain has changed beyond his imagination – for the worse. He decides to do something about it, and alongside a barrister (James) threatened by the man he aims to put away, an office worker (Dyer), a beat-up student (Friend) and an angry thug (Harris), takes action against the scum that populates the nation. A friendly copper (Hoskins) helps them from the inside, but the real question is whether they can go that extra step from standing up for justice to becoming true outlaws, and killing the criminals that threaten them daily.

When you think of the great performances both Bob Hoskins and Sean Bean have put in over their careers, it’s wholly depressing to think that they both plumb the depths here – I’m sure they had reason to act in the film (they liked the story, got paid a lot), but their performances aren’t anywhere near good enough to make the rest of the film any better. The other male actors starring in the film include Danny Dyer, Rupert Friend, Sean Harris and Lennie James, each playing another of the ‘Outlaws’, and each of whom are even more terrible than Bean or Hoskins. Danny Dyer continues to present himself as an Essex kid who just happens to have stumbled in front of the camera – a gormless idiot that directors continue to think can act! The other three play a uni student, a mindless thug and an upper-class barrister in the film, and each of them put in a performance that suggests they are as clueless as the viewer as to what they’re doing in this mindless tripe. The only women in this film are either strippers (in one strip club scene) or related to the Outlaws, without any further depth. Maybe the film might have been slightly better with some women in it, as opposed to the macho-fest that it is.

The sad thing here is that there are small signs of promise, but they’re overshadowed not only by the plot, but by the filming skills on show. Director Nick Love should hire a new cameraman as well as a proper screenwriter – the film is in constant shaky-cam mode, and the characters seem to be only excuses for coarse dialogue to be shouted out – with no proper meaning or thought behind what could have been a good message. Love seems to have had good intentions here – he wanted to catalogue the rising violence and scum in Britain on film, even enlisting the help of big name actors to do so. However, in execution (or rather in his execution of it) the idea is hackneyed, ridiculous and pathetic. Every character is a sterotype, and every swear word emphasised for no point whatsoever – it’s a disaster in filmmaking, on every level.

Giving Bob Hoskins the chance to use the C-word may well be hilarious in imagination, but then having him, Sean Bean and every other character swear regardless of the situation is both ridiculous and over the top. Everyone swears, that’s a given – but this much, almost every other word, in conversation? I don’t think so. And leaving the profanity alone, the expository dialogue, as well as some of the more ‘tense’ scenes, is TERRIBLE. I can’t even begin to describe it really – every character seems to have an issue with articulating speech – Sean Bean in particular looks like he’s just learnt how to speak every time he opens his mouth. Musically speaking, dark, ominous synth doth not a tense atmosphere make. I could bang up the background music for this film armed only with a keyboard.
In visual terms, Love shows a little promise – London looks fantastic, especially filmed as if it were New York or L.A. (those overhead shots that we see so often are used here). It’s clear that he knows what looks good, and many of the outdoor scenes really utilise the areas they’ve been filmed in (case in point being the forest towards the end). It’s just such a shame that it’s only the visual aspect of the movie that works – take away the plot, the characters and the dialogue and this would be a modern, shiny look at 21st century Britain.

I hope that this review stops anyone else from putting themselves through this rubbish – the more people I can save from seeing it, the better. It should never have been made, and the fact that it was is testament to the power of Sean Bean and Bob Hoskins – if they hadn’t have been in it, I wouldn’t have been writing this, and as it is, they should be wishing they weren’t in it.

1/10