Film review - Outlaw

Sunday Business Post - Agenda Section - 11 Mar 2007

Outlaw opens with Gene Dekker (Danny Dyer) and his fiancé being physically attacked by a group of chavvish youths. The next scene shows a bloodied and battered Dekker confront the assailants with a gun, but he cannot bring himself to pull the trigger. This turns out to be a dream, however he is soon beaten up in an uncannily similar incident.

Dekker decides he must do something about the random violence, injustice and corruption that appears to dominate his world, and he teams up with an unlikely assortment of similarly disenfranchised angry young men.

They decide to take the law into their own hands, and wreak revenge on criminal elements who have hurt them and are dragging society down.

The leader of the gang is Bryant (Sean Bean), who returns from army service in Afghanistan to find his wife living with another man. Hillier (Sean Harris), is a scrawny security guard whose previous convictions for football hooliganism meant he was unable to follow his army dreams.

Monroe (Lennie James) is a barrister whose pregnant wife is murdered by associates of the gangland boss he is attempting to prosecute, while Sandy (Rupert Friend) is a floppy haired Cambridge university student recently hospitalised after a random street attack.

Following a rousing speech by Bryant, they all agree to stand up for themselves, as nobody else - not the corrupt police, not pompous politicians - seems to care.

This unlikely vigilante group are assisted by Lewis (Bob Hoskins), a straight cop whose years of loyal service have been spent watching less principled colleagues regularly promoted ahead of him. Lewis supplies names and addresses, which allows them to locate and punish the low-lifes who have done so much to damage the lives of ordinary British people.

Given quasi-military discipline and training from Bryant, even the quieter characters grow increasingly savage and vicious.

Director Nick Love, whose previous films include the brutal crime pics Football Factory and The Business, sets most of the action takes place in grim, rainswept London streets. Love has added a socially relevant theme and quality cast members to his trademark films about violent young men out of control. The contradiction in this film's message - that the only way we can combat violence and disorder on our streets is to grab a shotgun and knife to confront the attackers - is quite glaring.

The soundtrack grinds and thumps menacingly and the photography is so grey and steely that it almost blends seamlessly with the CCTV footage which features prominently throughout. The action-laden plot progresses quickly and directly, with little call for back-story or nuance.

None of the actors are seriously challenged by these roles. Bean is characterstically tough and uncompromising, while Hoskins gives a convincing performance of a good man driven to act immorally by circumstances beyond his control.

As the vigilantes grow more confident and bloodthirsty, the tabloid press dub them 'The Outlaws'.

Sympathy with the band is quickly lost as we is horrific detail what happens when grown men live out their adolescent revenge fantasies.