Review of Outlaw (2007) by Graham W — 13 May 2008

.

OUTLAW.

Outlaw(Details here), the newest film from director Nick Love and the favourite 'Vertigo Films', this film was funded by the fans, using the previous success of Vertigo movies to sell this idea, supposedly giving the fans what they want.

Sean Bean plays Bryant, a soldier coming back from Iraq, disgusted to see the state of yob culture and suchlike. Finding some like minded people, he assembles a small band of outlaw vigilante's to fight crime, fed inside information by a police officer played by Bob Hoskins.

The most overbearing part of this film is the terrible direction, an overuse of handheld camera and blur gives the entire feel a very amateur feel and lowers the quality, coupled with digital photography, the level of blur and lack of focus throughout distances and irritates the audience.

The actual narrative runs a little slow at the beginning and tails off into obscurity at the end, but remains reasonably enjoyable, with convincing performances and some interesting characters thrown in the mix, we actually feel for their cause.

There are a few scenes of absolute captivation, unfortunately the direction takes away from this, but there is a lot there to make the audience smile and stay entertained.

This film is reasonable, nothing outstanding in any department, but still enjoyable, unfortunately the poor level of direction makes the film difficult to watch and loses many of the good points in the movie, overshadowing some competent editing and interesting plot turns. Overall, this film seems to forget it's own point and doesn't know what it's trying to say, confusing it's own messages amidst awful direction. Nothing to impress here.