Outlaw (2007)

Director Nick Love has enjoyed a certain level of success in Britain, being the creative force behind 2004's 'The Football Factory'. This film, 'Outlaw', was released just three years after Love's most famous work, but he seems to have lost something in between the two titles. Fortunately, he managed to gain the interest of a strong, charismatic leading man - without whom this film would have been virtually unwatchable. Sean Bean has delivered some great performances, but 'Outlaw' isn't one of them. He acts capably, but without strong lines he never comes close to unleashing his potential. Bean is joined by other well-known talents, including Bob Hoskins, Danny Dyer and Lennie James (the latter being best-known for playing Morgan in 'The Walking Dead'). These actors, like Bean, are held back by lacklustre writing, but I found Lennie James rather impressive in a couple of scenes. The technical aspects of this film (cinematography, editing, effects etc.) rarely impress, but I don't recall finding any of these elements bad. They're probably average for the Brit-crime genre… like pretty much everything in 'Outlaw'.

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.

Saw this in the DVD shop & the cover was full of review & 4stars by news of world etc, I'm sure these are just paid off to give something a good review.. The film was week boring pointless & i found myself drifting off constantly. the storyline is nothing new but that's not the problem, the problem is nothings been done with it to make it entertaining.. The guys don't really ever get any fight in them your jusy say watching them be lame for nearly all the film not wanting to do what it days in the description about taking justice into their own hands. It just dosny happen, the ending was weak & made no sense at all just a dumb movie..

Outlaw definitely made me wonder... about myself.I have often thought that, in a different life, I could have been a hit-man and those feeling certainly rose to the surface as I watched this movie. A bunch of unlikely guys with a common thread come together as much by chance as anything else when they are let down by society. One (Sean Bean) has suffered the unimaginable (unless you've been there) horrors of war in the middle east only to come home to find his wife in bed with another man. Another (Danny Dyer) has been beaten half to death by a gang of mindless street thugs. A Negro barrister (Lennie James) has his pregnant wife murdered because, with a moral interest in serving society and make the world a better place, he won't walk away from prosecuting a criminal drug dealer who has bent London cops on his payroll.As the plot built and the scene was set I found my anger rising by the minute along with the victims of criminal rule as a state of anarchy was graphically portrayed. I wanted to wreak retribution on the low-life perpetrators and so, when that began to happen, rather than feeling offended, I felt exhilarated. I know I could have pulled the trigger without compunction!I guess one thing I wouldn't have done personally was work as a team which the vigilantes did. I would have preferred to work anonymously and alone. I was reminded a bit of the TV series, "Arrow" although "Outlaw" was a lot more realistic than that. Some of the vigilante gang were hampered by moral qualms about what they were doing whilst I was almost eagerly wanting to not only dispose of the thugs and bullies but to do so in a slow and painful way! Hmmmm.So, for me, Outlaw was more of a social statement than just a movie. I was reminded of news stories on TV like one recently where a beautiful young pregnant wife was raped and murdered on her way home from work at Macdonalds just down the road from my home and the 18-year-old perpetrator - who had had a bad family situation - was given a token jail sentence by some bleeding-heart judge. I just hope he ends up in a jail where the other inmates will deal out the justice that the courts so often fail to deal out. I don't want to pay (they tell me) over a million dollars a year to keep that scum-bag in an air- conditioned jail where he will get three healthy meals a day prepared for him and won't even have to do the washing up. If it was up to me, he would have been executed and the world rid of one more waste of time!But the bleeding-heart brigade say that's inhuman! I wonder what the judge would say had the victim been his daughter! So, as it is, we NEED people like Sean Bean and his mates to clean up the filth from our streets. I loved the closing shot and, when Manning said his line, I said aloud, "Wanna bet?!"OK, many might say that Outlaw portrays a side of life that they don't want to go to the movies thrust at them and I wouldn't mind betting they're the ones who lobbied their MPs to have corporal punishment abolished. Well, maybe they don't realise it but the situations portrayed in this movie exist in just about every big city in the world.