I was looking forward to catching this in the cinema . A great premise of wronged citizens let down by the law and bleeding heart do gooder liberals which is something I can connect with . On top of that OUTLAW contains a great trailer so spending £2.30 on a bus ticket and £6 to get into the cinema ( And let's not forget you spend twenty minutes sitting through adverts and trailers ) for some violent catharsis seemed time and money well spent
Oh dear . I won't come out with the cliché of " That's two hours of my life I'll never get back " but I was expecting far more . I said this movie had a great trailer and that's because the trailer contained all the best bits . Yes there's bits of extreme violence in the trailer and you'll be rubbing your chin wondering what dastardly deeds the criminals committed in order to suffer deserved come back . Unfortunately after seeing the entire movie you'll still be none the wiser because Nick Love has written a screenplay lacking character motivation
!!!!! SLIGHT SPOILERS !!!!!
Some other commentators have gone into detail as to the flaws of the screenplay so I won't go into much detail but I'm still left wondering what caused Bryant to go loco . His wife dumped him , he gets name called by some chavs and the son of his former CO was scarred for life by thugs . Is this a good enough reason for committing murder ? I was also confused by Bryant's dialog . He rants about AIDS victims and suicide bombers and " That f****** c*** Blair " then a few scenes later when one of the characters mentions he's a Muslim ( There's nothing to indicate he's Muslim - He just states it as a fact ) Bryant replies that everyone is an individual . Hmmm Bryant is a right wing nutter in one scene and a few scenes later he's changed his tune .
Bryant isn't the only one who's suffering from a poorly written character . So's Bob Hoskins cop has spent 25 years on the force and it's only now he's decided that the police are a waste of space . Sorry but I couldn't take him seriously or the fact that he has access to serious crime files , files which his local station don't seem to have noticed have gone missing .In fact nearly all the characters are nothing more than literary devices and cyphers and you can't help but notice this which means you can't take them seriously as three dimensional people who live in Britain in 2007 . Perhaps this is best summed up in the scene where they capture a crim , drive him to a barn house , stab him a couple of times and then just as they're about to execute him by hanging they then change their mind allowing the scum bag to live and set up the plot turn at the end . I think the phrase for this is " A contrived storyline "
Having said all this I didn't really feel I'd wasted my money watching OUTLAW . the cast do their best with their underwritten characters and because he's the only character that Nick Love seems to have put any hard work into Sean Harris's excels as fascist weirdo Hillier . When Hillier mentions what he'd like to do to Gary Glitter and Ian Huntley I had to control myself from jumping out of my seat screaming " RIGHT ON " . Such a pity Hillier disappears two thirds of the way through the movie . For those of you expecting a violent thriller you won't be disappointed because there's one scene where a character gets kneecapped which caused gasps of shock in the ( Near empty ) cinema . For those of you who liked the digital video look of Danny Boyle's 28 DAYS LATER you'll love what director Nick Love has done here though anyone who doesn't like digital video will absolutely despise the directing
All in all a rather disappointing British thriller which doesn't realise its full potential
Oh dear . I won't come out with the cliché of " That's two hours of my life I'll never get back " but I was expecting far more . I said this movie had a great trailer and that's because the trailer contained all the best bits . Yes there's bits of extreme violence in the trailer and you'll be rubbing your chin wondering what dastardly deeds the criminals committed in order to suffer deserved come back . Unfortunately after seeing the entire movie you'll still be none the wiser because Nick Love has written a screenplay lacking character motivation
!!!!! SLIGHT SPOILERS !!!!!
Some other commentators have gone into detail as to the flaws of the screenplay so I won't go into much detail but I'm still left wondering what caused Bryant to go loco . His wife dumped him , he gets name called by some chavs and the son of his former CO was scarred for life by thugs . Is this a good enough reason for committing murder ? I was also confused by Bryant's dialog . He rants about AIDS victims and suicide bombers and " That f****** c*** Blair " then a few scenes later when one of the characters mentions he's a Muslim ( There's nothing to indicate he's Muslim - He just states it as a fact ) Bryant replies that everyone is an individual . Hmmm Bryant is a right wing nutter in one scene and a few scenes later he's changed his tune .
Bryant isn't the only one who's suffering from a poorly written character . So's Bob Hoskins cop has spent 25 years on the force and it's only now he's decided that the police are a waste of space . Sorry but I couldn't take him seriously or the fact that he has access to serious crime files , files which his local station don't seem to have noticed have gone missing .In fact nearly all the characters are nothing more than literary devices and cyphers and you can't help but notice this which means you can't take them seriously as three dimensional people who live in Britain in 2007 . Perhaps this is best summed up in the scene where they capture a crim , drive him to a barn house , stab him a couple of times and then just as they're about to execute him by hanging they then change their mind allowing the scum bag to live and set up the plot turn at the end . I think the phrase for this is " A contrived storyline "
Having said all this I didn't really feel I'd wasted my money watching OUTLAW . the cast do their best with their underwritten characters and because he's the only character that Nick Love seems to have put any hard work into Sean Harris's excels as fascist weirdo Hillier . When Hillier mentions what he'd like to do to Gary Glitter and Ian Huntley I had to control myself from jumping out of my seat screaming " RIGHT ON " . Such a pity Hillier disappears two thirds of the way through the movie . For those of you expecting a violent thriller you won't be disappointed because there's one scene where a character gets kneecapped which caused gasps of shock in the ( Near empty ) cinema . For those of you who liked the digital video look of Danny Boyle's 28 DAYS LATER you'll love what director Nick Love has done here though anyone who doesn't like digital video will absolutely despise the directing
All in all a rather disappointing British thriller which doesn't realise its full potential