The Outsider (2014) Directed by Brian A Miller

Really don't know why I keep watching these sort of movies. Of course this isn't a very good one, with its muddled script, cheap action and questionable acting.

Thing that annoys me the most about these type of movies is that they are needlessly complicated to watch. The story itself is incredibly simple and straightforward but it's storytelling makes things unnecessarily messy- and therefor also highly unpleasant to follow. About halfway through I just simply gave up. I couldn't care anymore about anything that was happening or where the story was going to take the movie and its characters.

The characters weren't really any compelling ones to begin with. Best way to describe Craig Fairbrass is as a Vinnie Jones like Arnold Schwarzenegger, if that makes any sense to you. He unfortunately also acts like Vinnie Jones and Arnold Schwarzenegger, which means that he's convincing enough as an action star but whenever he has to say some dialog or display any emotions, it becomes all too obvious that he just isn't a very good actor, with a whole lot of range. And sure, even at the age of 73 James Caan is still awesome but why is he even in this movie? He isn't a very memorable villain in this, though at the same time it probably still is true as well that he was the best thing about this movie. But that's saying more about the rest of the movie than actually about Caan's character or performance really.

The first half of the movie was at least bearable enough but as things kept on developing, the movie became more and more unwatchable. Most of the developments are some very unlikely and far fetched ones, which makes them often more annoying than anything good and surprising for the movie. The mystery and thriller aspects of the movie really aren't working out too well due to those very same reasons.

So how about the action? Well, nothing specular to see here really. Most of the action consists out of characters running around and chasing each other and there is the occasional fistfight but nothing that is going to excite any of the action lovers out there.

It's just a bad movie, even by low-budget movie standards.

4/10

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