By
now, there is little the L.A. coroner’s office can do to shock Americans with
their incompetence. Yet, a British military contractor is still rather aghast
when they misidentify a corpse as his estranged daughter. (Still, that sort of
counts as good news.) He will be getting to the bottom of it all in Brian A.
Miller’s The Outsider (trailer here), which releases
this Friday in select theaters and on VOD.
Lex
Walker was never much of a father, but when his receives news of Samantha’s
presumed demise, he goes AWOL to tend to his grim paternal duties. However, the
body might be a twentysomething blonde, but it is not her. Somewhat agitated,
Walker heads straight to her last place of employment, a dodgy financial
services conglomerate, where Schuster, the sleazy CEO does everything possible
to announce himself as the bad guy short of standing on his head and spitting nickels.
When
Walker takes good-and-hard exception to some of some of Schuster’s muscle on
the way out, he naturally gets arrested, thereby putting him on the radar of
Det. Klein, the cop in charge of Samantha Walker’s case. Of course, they do not
get along either. Walker’s investigation only starts to get traction when he
bribes a lead out of Margo, a reluctant cocktail waitress, who quickly becomes
part of the mess, regardless of her intentions.
So
when you see Shannon Elizabeth and James Caan lined up behind a film, you know
you are in serious b-movie territory. Jason Patric still ought to have some
major studio cred, but it is not exactly shocking to see him here as well. As
it happens, they are all largely enlisted to support British character actor
Craig Fairbrass’s coming out as an action star. Craggy and hardnosed, he has at
least enough old school presence to carry a light weight film like The Outsider.
As
Klein, the reliable Patric helps to anchor the film—and between him, Caan, and
Fairbrass there is certainly no lack of manliness. Naturally, Caan plays the
villainous Schuster, hamming it up at every opportunity, because viewers would
be disappointed if he didn’t. In
contrast, the character of Margo is so under-written, Shannon Elizabeth mostly
just stands around looking for something to do.