Just so...so bad

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

I got sooo bored for the first time I closed the film.

Just because a movie has a snails pace, does not mean it can not be brutal and violent in spades. We got one of those cases right here. It's about honor and loyalty. A major part of the movie is in Japanese (with subtitles of course), but our main character is an english speaking one. Which is the old "stranger comes into town" kind of thing.In this case his invasion into this culture that most westerners may not be that aware of, is really the driving force. He does learn fast, but he is also human, so he does have some urges and he has feelings too (even if sometimes you may think otherwise). Brutal, honest and without really taking compromises, this may feel too long for some, but will be a masterpiece for others.

I wanted to like this movie. Jared Leto has turned in a lot of great performances, and the Yakuza subject matter is not often seen in American cinema. Leto tried his best, but the movie just falls flat.Positives first. Leto's performance is pretty strong, and the film is mostly well shot. The dialogue scenes mostly stick to shot-reverse shot, but there are a few good wide shots of the cityscape and the Japanese countryside that look good. The story is engaging at least: Nick Lowell (Leto) is imprisoned in Japan during the American occupation, and later joins the Yakuza after helping out one of its members, with the film exploring his rise through the ranks.Other than that, though, there's not much else here. The rest of the cast is just average. The writing is honestly awful. Dialogue is half-assed in Japanese and English, scenes don't flow together, and it drags... oh man does this movie drag. The 10 minute opening scene feels like 20 minutes, and by the time you hit the hour mark the movie feels like it's been on all day. The editing is to blame here also. The movie is not paced well, and there are a ton of shots of people sitting, driving or walking for nonvisual storytelling that could be cut in half and still get their point across. The movie also looks ugly. It has a dark color palette, which you would think would work in a crime movie but here it doesn't because the lighting doesn't match the color tones. The movie is lit like a TV show. There are also some baffling creative choices that make no sense within the context of the film. Leto's love interest, for example, has an American accent when she speaks English, even though she's lived in Japan her whole life. Then a plot twist involving one of Nick's old army platoon members comes out of nowhere, and is dropped just as quickly.The movie really needed a page one rewrite to fix the dialogue and pacing issues, and with a better director and supporting actor who have the right feel for the movie's tone, it could have been a lot better (David Fincher and Ken Watanabe immediately came to my mind, but even a pair with half of their abilities could have improved this movie). It's definitely not the worst crime movie I've ever seen, but it's definitely one of the most dull and disappointing. I wouldn't recommend it except as background noise while you focus on something else.

We watched The Outsider because of its high ratings, especially the 10s. We have realized that those reviewers have totally different sensibilities than we do. They apparently think, and even feel, nothing about extreme violence, particularly long graphic gruesome scenes of finger amputations and throat slittings. The entire film seems to be filmed in slow motion in dim blue light. Of course, we can not say for sure because we exceeded our limits for gore, sadism, and general psychotic/sociopathic behavior lovingly lingered upon. We bailed and read the remainder of the plot on Wikipedia. Advise you do the same.