Thanks for the memories!

How sad is this?

Highly Overrated But Still Good

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Outlaw is a stupid revenge movie from hooligan filmmaker Nick Love. Ever since his successful debut feature The Football Factory Love likes to point his camera eagerly at male aggression. Such is also the case in Outlaw, in which the ever reliable Sean Bean plays a disillusioned war veteran who trains a group of vigilant citizens to wipe the scum off the streets, Bronson style.The problem with Outlaw is that the transformation of seemingly normal guys into merciless killers isn't anywhere near believable, especially the prosecutor who joins Bean's gang when his wife is murdered by a powerful mob boss. I mean, even Bronson in Death Wish started out with a sock of coins. These white collar guys have no problem handling automatic weapons. Also, it doesn't take them long to develop a taste for cold blooded murder.All this is very unconvincing and rather silly, but that doesn't stop Love from serving it all up with great solemness and false cowboy romanticism. And what are we to make from the development of office worker Gene (would-be tough guy Danny Dyer), who starts out getting kicked and beaten by some street punks and ends up a "real man" in the finale, ready to shoot someone in the head? It's as if Love really believes this crap about a rite of passage through bloody violence. It left a bad taste.

Sgt. Danny Bryant comes home from a tour of duty in Iraq to find that things aren't what they once were. A gang of thugs has moved into the neighbourhood, and his wife is with another man. Gene Dekker, is beaten up by thugs, and he sets out to get revenge on the men. Terence Manning, a gangster of London's underworld, is currently on trial, with lawyer Cedric Munroe heading the prosecution's legal team. Manning's men attack both Munroe's wife, and persuade Munroe's bodyguard Walter not to intervene. The men from an alliance, and set out to even the score against those who wronged them, though their contempt for the law puts them outside the lines of conventional justice.....Yes, it's a trashy, exploitative movie, but its one of my all time favourite guilty pleasures. And it's because its starts off silly, goes a little cuckoo in the middle, and then, the third act is just beyond, beyond bonkers.But Love is one of this directors that doesn't really do anything other than over the top British bulldog B-movies. And they are all full of another word beginning with B, but with his films, you can just switch off, and forget everything else for ninety or so minutes.The cast are all fine, and do what you would expect them all to do in films like this. Bean meets all the rest of the group whilst really angry, and this anger makes them angry, and Bob Hoskins is there to overlook everything.Imagine The Avengers after fifteen pints of strong Lager, and Pie and Chips?, then this is your movie.It's pretty visceral stuff, the camera work tries to make it look realistic, but it looks like it must have been cold on the day.To say the third act is beyond ridiculous is an understatement, but by the time it arrives, you couldn't care less.If you like this type of film, its a riot,if you don't, fair enough.

So is Sean Bean building a wing onto his house? Michael Caine once said that you can always tell when he is needing money ....he'll make a stinker of a movie. Or has he really turned into a Fascist? The tone of his last 2 movies, at least, has been racist and bigoted. Maybe he's just trying to call to our attention how barbaric we have become in the U..S. and the U.K. Listening to the commentary for some explanation of the mysteries in this movie is futile, because love, the director and one of the actors, Danny Dyer, just use the f word every other word, and talk about everything BUT the movie: living in the country, organic food, the smell of asparagus feces, being pregnant, how all the critics hated this movie, etc. the ending is sad, as Dyer says, "Well, this may be our last time together. It's been a good trip." I almost cried, something I didn't do while watching this nauseating gratuitously violent movie. And of course the bad guys live: the police captain and the betraying corporate 'buddy' of Dwyer. Factual, this movie wasn't but if you like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid , you might like this movie as the director stole that ending. These guys live when they should have been dead long ago judging from the point blank shooting at them. Sorta a waste of the talent of Bean and Hoskins. They must need a new room on their house.

Britain is falling down into disregard. Violence and crime have taken over and even the powers to be are corrupt. That is the United Kingdom of today. At least according to the scriptwriter. Danny Bryant (Sean Bean) returns unwanted and uncared for from the nightmare of war. An Afgan veteran he has left duty and become a civilian only to find out that his only mainstay in life - his wife - has found comfort in the arms of another man. Abandoned by his family and his country he enters the road of revenge with his focus firmly set on the criminal underbelly of the city. By chance he finds a group of like-minded individuals, who however unlike him lack the killer instinct and abilities to fight back. Gene Dekker (Danny Dyer) is a wimp unable to protect himself or his fiancée and although nothing really bad has ever happened to him his life is controlled by fear. Sandy Mardell (Rupert Friend) was beaten up and left for dead by a group of young underage thugs only to survive with his face disfigured. Simon Hillier (Sean Harris) is just... well... mental. Prosecutor Cedric Munroe (Lennie James) is the heaviest afflicted member of the party - his wife and unborn baby are killed by members of the Manning crime syndicate.Vengeance quickly turns out to be tougher than expected, as the members of the Outlaws must cross barrier after barrier. It's not simple for a honest citizen to suddenly start whacking thugs or even worse killing them. Not all of them are able to commit and albeit they initially know the aim of their fight morality gets in the way of their justice.Many people here find this movie unrealistic and the actions of characters idiotic. I however find it to be extremely realistic - the Outlaws are far from ideal and even their self-proclaimed leader Danny is prone to dire mistakes. There is no mastermind behind the plan, so naturally chance and planning coincide. The unexpected happens and everything goes awry. The fighting spree of the Outlaws is short-lived and although they have their five minutes of fame it ends rather quickly and abruptly.My main problem with the movie is the lack of character build. Only two characters - Danny and Gene - get decent focus, whilst the character which should be key to story - Cedric - is underused. The plot stays plausible, but you have no real idea of what actually guides our heroes to do what they do. I could see a real classic revenge movie come out of this one, but instead I'm not sure what the director's real intent was as we end up in an unsatisfying finale undercut with the poor build-up of characters. In the end I have no real idea as to what the movie was about - maybe it was just supposed to be a gratuitous action flick? In the end a shame, because the potential in this movie was very close to the surface.