The Outsider Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

The Outsider Blu-ray Movie Review

Law(less) & (Dis)order.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 1, 2019

A lot of westerns hinge on the interplay between desperadoes and those charged with bringing them to justice, but what happens when the justice bringers are the desperadoes? That’s one of the questions propping up The Outsider, a film which reteams director Timothy Woodward, Jr. and star Trace Adkins, who previously offered western aficionados Hickok 4K. In this film Adkins portrays a marshal named Reese Walker who may not be a Texas Ranger (sorry), but who is arguably one of the few morally uncompromised lawmen in the story. Walker is trying to piece together what happened after a devastating brawl in a bar that has left several people dead, despite the fact that the attacker evidently did not have a gun. A brief flashback details how some of the carnage occurred, and it was the result of a railroad worker named Jing (Jon Foo) having gone berserk after finding out his wife has been killed by one of those less than noble lawmen, a smarmy guy named James (Kaiwi Lyman). The fact that James’ surname is also Walker perhaps gives a clue that there’s a father — son dynamic in The Outsider that is not exactly Leave It to Beaver territory, if I may be permitted to mix both genres and time periods.

There are arguably two stories in The Outsider which work at cross purposes to each other, despite the obvious efforts to knit everything together. The first element is Jing's quest for vengeance, but the second and at time overriding element is the dysfunctional relationship between Reese and James. When trackers get involved trying to find Jing, that adds a whole new set of diversions, and as such, the film may not attain the emotional catharsis it's aiming for. When a late revelation casts Reese's temperament in a new light, the film seems to be tipping over into melodrama, albeit spiced with a liberal dose of the sort of quest for salvation that is frequently a part of more contemporary Christian themed material.

The Outsider Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Outsider is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cinedigm with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.76:1. The closing credits include a "captured by Alexa" logo and I'm once again presuming this was finished at a 2K DI. There are two things that may arguably prevent this presentation from really offering consistently high detail levels: first, its rather weirdly wide aspect ratio, which becomes something like a slim "ribbon" of imagery; and, second and probably more saliently, the fact that huge swaths of this story take place at night and often in torrential downpours. In decent lighting, especially in some of the outdoor daytime material, the palette pops vividly and detail levels are well above average. In the nighttime and/or rainy sequences, however, detail levels fall pretty precipitously, to the point that it's actually hard to make out what is happening (I personally had to stop and rewind a couple of times during the climax to figure out who was getting what done to him). Some of the outdoor material is quite evocative looking courtesy of Pablo Diez's cinematography, but the entire presentation might have been aided by fewer scenes shot through buckets of water and in the dead of night.

The Outsider Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Outsider features a nicely immersive DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 that offers some well placed ambient environmental sounds in the many outdoor sequences. Some of the fight scenes also bristle with quite a bit of surround placement. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout this problem free track.

The Outsider Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• A Look Inside The Outsider (1080p; 5:13) is standard issue EPK fare with interviews and scenes from the film.


• Outside the Law: Making The Outsider (1080p; 5:49) is more of the same, though with an ostensible emphasis more on behind the scenes footage.


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2:08)

The Outsider Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

When Jing dispatches a roomful of bad guys with what looks like the 19th century equivalent of Bruce Lee style martial arts moves, I kind of hoped the film would offer more of that kind of "cultural mash up". Instead, The Outsider kind of wants to wallow in twin tragedies, one involving Jing and his dead wife, and the other involving Reese and James and their seriously messed up relationship. The Outsider has some very interesting aspects, but it may be too melodramatic for some, and not action oriented enough for others. Still, for diehard western fans, this will probably more than satisfy, and for those fans, this release sports generally excellent technical merits, though some stylistic choices in how and when to stage scenes can keep fine detail to a minimum at times.