Reception
Outlaw opened to highly negative reviews from critics upon its release; the Daily Mirror slammed the film, calling it 'simplistic' and 'muddled' and giving it 2/5 and 1/5 in their Friday and Sunday issues respectively. The Guardian described it as "ugly, naive and deeply unpleasant: crime-revenge-porn without any style or wit or convincing narrative". Ali Catterall of Channel 4 Film described the film as Death Wish written by the Daily Mail. Empire Magazine panned it in their 1 star assessment, stating that the film "descends into a sickening sludge of childish politics, brutality and creative swearing".
In some media outlets, the film has even been described as 'irresponsible' and 'exploitative'. The Independent stated that the film "is as unconvincing as it is unpleasant" and that it "may be a sincere expression of Nick Love's own ambivalence, but it makes for a faltering film. Wendy Ide of The Times called it "a rage-spewing hate crime of a movie... It’s not the explicit violence and primal anger that is worrying, it’s the fact that Love may be tapping into something simmering in the nation’s psyche. Or worse, inflaming it." As of 2011, Outlaw has a score of 21% on Rotten Tomatoes based on reviews from 19 critics.
One unlikely outcome of Outlaw's negative critical reception was the cult popularity of a clip featuring director Nick Love and actor Danny Dyer discussing the film's critical mauling, taken from the film's DVD commentary and posted on YouTube. On his blog the comedy writer Graham Linehan called the clip his "favourite moment of accidental comedy of the last five years" while Guardian newspaper film critic Peter Bradshaw compared Love and Dyer to a real life Derek and Clive.
Read more about this topic: Outlaw (2007 Film)
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