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OUTLAWS
Director: Stephen McCallum Cast: Ryan Corr, Abbey Lee, Josh McConville, Matt Nable, Simone Kessell, Aaron Pedersen MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:32 Release Date: 2/1/19 (limited) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | January 31, 2019 Outlaws is kind of like a modern-day interpretation of Macbeth that involves an Australian motorcycle gang. Before one's optimism and/or curiosity is too roused, the movie also doesn't care a bit about its characters, features some blatantly ugly gay panic, and, beyond those other unfortunate traits, is quite dumb. Director Stephen McCallum's movie opens with the gang riding at night, with a heavy metal band on the soundtrack shouting "Lunacy!" This moment turns out to be the extent of development for the characters in Matt Nable's screenplay. They're all ferocious or angry to one degree or another, and inevitably, that rage gets the better of them. There's no reason to care, though, about the fight between Paddo (Ryan Corr), the president pro tempore of the Copperheads gang, and Knuck (Nable), the official president, who returns to power after a stint in prison that apparently turned him gay and into a rapist (That subplot is even nastier than it sounds, given the crew's rampant homophobia and Knack's discomforting philosophy on his violent sexuality). Paddo wants the gang to earn "legitimate" money by laundering their ill-gotten gains through a rival gang. The movie seems to forget that the deal is actually a punishment, because Paddo's brother Skink (Josh McConville) stole heroin from the other gang. Then again, the movie forgets or contradicts a lot of specific things, especially during the murder-happy climax (A ruthless character spares one guy, just so the guy's death can be more dramatic, and the fate of the character whose apparent death started all of the mess is saved for an ultimately meaningless twist). To make a simple but overly convoluted story short, Skink gets on Knuck's bad side and is kicked out of the club. Paddo defends his brother, and his girlfriend Katrina (Abbey Lee) suggests that Paddo should kill Knuck. Paddo thinks it's the only way to survive but doesn't do a thing about it for reasons that can only be ascribed to Nable's desire to set all of these terrible-but-indecisive-but-mostly-inconsistent characters against each other in as many ways as possible. The bodies pile up until the final moments of Outlaws, because death and betrayal and general wickedness are the primary things about which the movie cares. If the plot and characters don't make any sense in the process of adding more of those things, so be it, apparently. Copyright © 2019 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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(for strong violence including rape, sexual content/nudity, pervasive
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