Outrage

I hit up two films at the DFT last night; Outrage and the Mill & the Cross. Honestly, neither of them lived up to my expectations. I never leave the DFT wishing I hadn't seen the film at hand and this was no exception, but Outrage still wasn't anything I'd suggest you run out and see. It was pretty good, but nothing special.

It's a yakuza film. There's lots of mob violence and pinky amputation as you'd expect. But Takeshi never lets you connect to anyone in the film, so you have no stake in it. You don't care what happens. One guy does something fucked up, the rival family retaliates, and that back and forth scenario continues throughout the entire film until there's pretty much no one left. So what? That's not much of a plot.

There's copious amounts of back-stabbing, shooting, and inventive homicides. But that doesn't make for a super enthralling film. If Takeshi had delved deeper into some of the characters or if they all didn't have such typically stoic personas then I think this would have been a stronger film.

It's cool. See it if you want, but just don't expect it to make any "Best Of" lists this year.