ViewGuide

Created Jan 06, 2009 12:49AM PST • Edited Jan 06, 2009 12:49AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Pretty Awful 0.5

   If 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.

4. Acting

   Awful 0.0

   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. And don’t get me started on Danny Dyer…

5. Male Stars Awful 0.0

   I’ve said what I wanted to say about Hoskins and Bean, but the other guys starring in the film include Danny Dyer, Rupert Friend, Sean Harris and Lennie James. Each of whom play 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 uni student, mindless thug and 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.

6. Female Stars Awful 0.0

   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.

7. Female Costars Awful 0.0

8. Male Costars Awful 0.0

10. Film

    Pretty Awful 0.5

    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.

11. Direction Awful 0.0

    Nick 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, every camera shot given the SHAKES for extra emphasis, and every swear word emphasised for no point whatsoever – it’s a disaster in filmmaking, on every level.

12. Play Awful 0.0

    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.

13. Music Awful 0.0

    Dark, ominous synth doth not a tense atmosphere make. I could bang up the background music for this film armed only with a keyboard.

14. Visuals OK 2.5

    This is where 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.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 3.5

    This film is violent, profane and has some nudity/sex thrown in for good measure.

17. Sex Titillating 2.5

18. Violence Savage 4.0

19. Rudeness Nasty 4.0

21. Reality

    Glib 1.8

    I would wage a guess that vigilantes exist around the world, but in Britain, as this film suggests, we’re apparently on the verge of societal breakdown. That’s news to me – and to most people here – so the film, whilst showing that the Outlaws don’t really succeed in their quest forf justice, appears to British audiences rather far-fetched!

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.8

23. Biological Glib 1.8

24. Physical Glib 1.8