There was good story material with the Pierce Brosnan/Ellen Barkin characters and I would give the benefit of the doubt that they tried their best with the material given. I'd even extend this to Richard Kind and Julie Hagerty, fleshing out that stereotypically neurotic Jewish parents thing that we've seen in Seinfeld, Woody Allen projects, etc. Michael Rooker also played well here, for what that character was. There was an interesting, serious story to tell here...but it got lost in the horrid attempt at humor.
And, I do mean horrid.
Adam Devine's character was just another outing for what I've been told is Adam Devine's shtick, and it was not funny to me. At all. On the contrary, he was downright annoying, unbelievable, and so unlikeable I couldn't root for him. The gravity of the situation should have dictated he'd take it more seriously, it was utterly incongruous that he'd behave like that in that situation.
Nina Dobrev's character was almost as annoying. The lack of awareness of the gravity of their situation dissipated any tension about the stakes.
Poorna Jagannathan brought some menace, but the script/direction dissipated it with, again, horrid attempts at humor. Note to directors - this kind of a character CAN be done. Right off the top of my head, Kangaroo Jack nailed it — Christopher Walken, Michael Shannon, AND Marton Csokas were not just one, nor two, but THREE characters of utter seriousness who could act seriously even in humorous scenes. If I had to, I could come up with more examples. Steven Berkoff and Jonathan Banks in Beverly Hills Cop, or how about Andy Garcia in Ocean's Eleven? ....I could get on a roll here, a digression that is actually the point: it's not hard to do. What we ended up with here with The Out-Laws, in comparison, seems lazy.
Lil Rel Howery and Laci Mosley were utterly useless characters that added nothing, zero, to the story. Not funny, not helpful, advanced nothing. I've no clue how the writers of this movie think they are writing funny, there was no funny here at all.
Sure, "funny" can be subjective. For example, while we may still laugh at scenes with George and Susan in Seinfeld, all the Seinfeld main characters would reveal that it was hard to find comedic rhythm with the actor playing that character, they seemed to be just not on the same page as to "where the funny was." It happens. They all spoke out in support of the actor, hoping their disconnection with her would not be held against her in terms of eligibility for other roles. Nothing personal. All this is to get back to the cemetery scene in The Out-Laws that, to me, flies so far beyond any envelope where humor could work in such a setting, I've no clue for whom they are writing this stuff. Yeah, you can put a scene in a cemetery for comedic effect, it becomes a question of how far you can push it before it stops being funny at ends up tasteless. This movie blows that out of the water, there's no sublime, if it had just stopped at ridiculous it'd be to its credit...I don't even know a word for what this was.
This director, Tyler Spindel, seems to work with Adam Sandler a lot. Anyone who knows me knows I do not like Adam Sandler's sense of funny. I am not his audience at all. If they are on the same page together, I'm not surprised by how bad this movie's attempts at humor missed me. This dude has directed seven works here on TMDb and his page, as of the moment I'm writing this, STILL does not have an English translation — no, I won't be clicking the button to update it so, if you're quick, you can see for yourself before someone finally eventually gets around to it. Either way, I'll just leave it with you to interpret this however you may personally be so inclined.
Is there ANY other redeeming character? Yep, absolutely. Lauren Lapkus. Whereas this should have been a more serious movie, and it was miserable as a comedy, her character was actually funny. There wasn't much, but she owned it and worked it. Reminded me of William Fichtner's refreshingly off-beat, at once both tense yet also hilarious work as Detective Alex Tardio in a movie called What's the Worst That Could Happen? with Martin Lawrence and Danny DeVito. Not a great movie, but there's enough going for it that I would watch it again just for him.
As for The Out-Laws, one day it may get remade. There's material to do a much better job — this crew wasted the talent they had.
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