Outlaw

Death Wish meets the Fight Club in this tightly wound saga from the U.K., which offers several seemingly unrelated story threads that eventually intersect a la Crash and Babel. Sean Bean is an English soldier home from Iraq who teaches a group of put-upon men how to fend for themselves when the legal system lets them down. Among those taking lessons are a man (Danny Dyer) pummeled by thugs, a black lawyer (Lennie James) whose wife has been assaulted by hoodlums and a security guard (Sean Harris) with soldiering aspirations. Overseeing the entire operation is a disillusioned cop (Bob Hoskins). It takes a while to figure out how these characters will come together, but when they do, the results are gripping and often disturbing. There’s no denying that English writer/director Nick Love is onto something here, but whether American audiences will take to his approach—hand-held camerawork, viscerally violent altercations and a superb cast speaking with heavy British accents—remains to be seen.

Shelf Talk: In England, Outlaw received mixed reviews, and stateside, it received an extremely limited release. Bean and Hoskins are certainly familiar enough names to draw curiosity seekers, and the snappy dialog that references the war in the Middle East, British politics and Rambo gooses the already incendiary proceedings for this riveting but reactionary revenge saga.