The Outsider – Movie Review

 

Flicking through the trending movies on Netflix I found what I hoped to be an exciting step into the ‘family orientated’ violent world of the Yakuza, what I ended up watching was a poorly executed and at time “when will this just end!!” movie.

I had heard rumor of this flick and I did get slightly excited, reason being is I am a fan of Japanese culture and war films, after I was finished watching it I suddenly realized why I try not to get excited about most things in life as they have a tendency of not happening or just turning out like shit. The Outsider took the latter in this situation.

Set in a World War 2 era Japan, it started out strong, with the mood and the tone set from the first few seconds, within minutes I was feeling positive that this was going to be as good as I had hoped, it was beautiful and brutal, the camera work impressed, the lighting was amazing and Jared Letto’s character (Nick Lowell) had me investing in him straight away, but that level of investment became stagnant as quick as it had come.

Don’t get me wrong Letto does an ok job at trying to hold this cold drab world together throughout the films two hour run time, but his lifeless, performance seemed so forced and awkward that it was like watching a certain president try and drink from a bottle of water, not to mention that there seems to be what feels like 30 minutes of Letto just staring, staring at people, staring into the distance he seemed to portray thought and emotion by just staring.
On top of his less than awe-inspiring performance.

The movie does do a couple of things well, the suspense of “Whats going to happen next” is forever present and again the camera/scene work is really well thought out and strung together.
It wasn’t until the late stage of the film that it really started to break down for me and up until then admittedly I was in a state of anticipation and boredom.
I love a good story, and the narrative of this film has its place and has merit, but the way its portrayed on screen is a huge letdown.

Letto’s character in this film has a striking resemblance to Patrick Bateman (played by Christopher Bale) in American Psycho, from the mannerisms to the hairstyle I could have sworn that they were brothers and this is where I feel the movie lets its self down, in my opinion, it’s trying too hard to emulate the greats when it could make it on its own by just doing its own thing.
I felt like it was a crude mix of American Psycho and A Bronx Tale, a mix of a Pyscho working his way through the crime family.

It is entertaining at points and if you don’t mind reading subtitles and cringing at Letto from time to time then you may enjoy this movie more than I did. Another point of defence is that it uses the different cultures and languages well to move the plot along and you don’t feel as though you are watching a subtitled movie as there seems to be an even amount of English and Japanese language used.
No matter what though I couldn’t shake the vision of him as the Joker in Suicide Squad, every time the camera cut to him all I could think about was him as a crazed criminal mastermind.

 

Let me know if you have seen it and what you thought.

 

Director: Martin Zandvliet

Cast :

• Jared Leto
• Kippei Shiina
• Shiori Kutsuna
• Tadanobu Asano
• Nao Ōmori
• Min Tanaka
• Emile Hirsch
• Rory Cochrane
• Young Dais

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