‘The Out-Laws’ Movie Review: Cast Energy Makes Dopey Action-Comedy A Passable Diversion
Photo from Netflix
From Jeremy Kibler
There are roughly three types of comedies: the ones where you laugh nonstop and need to see again just to hear the jokes you missed; the ones that end up being a dead zone of unfunniness; and then there are the ones where you laugh just enough. The Out-Laws falls into that latter camp.
The art of a tightly written, well-directed comedy with setups and payoffs isn’t dead (Game Night, hello?), but most of today’s movie comedies rely on talented casts and think that’s enough. Director Tyler Spindel (The Wrong Missy), Adam Sandler’s nephew, and writers Ben Zazove and Evan Turner do strike luck with who they have selling this riff on Meet the Parents, especially in the margins. It’s hit-and-miss and ultimately negligible but a cheerfully dopey and fitfully amusing formula action-comedy being fireman’s carried by its cast of game players.
Zanily played by Adam DeVine as strait-laced as he can be, bank manager Owen Browning is about to get married to his yogi girlfriend Parker (Nina Dobrev). He’s excited that Parker’s off-the-grid parents are actually coming to the wedding now, and he gets to finally meet them. When Parker has to work and Owen shows them around, it turns out that his future in-laws, the adorably named Billy (Pierce Brosnan) and Lilly (Ellen Barkin), are edgy, hard-drinking adrenaline junkies. Oh, and they might be legendary bank robbers known as “The Ghost Bandits” who have just robbed from Owen’s bank. As the title suggests, these in-laws are…out-laws.
Where to go with that premise, The Out-Laws drags Owen into Billy and Lilly’s latest $6 million heist to pay a debt to insane crime boss Rehan (Poorna Jagannathan). The resolution to all of this is pretty anticlimactic, but the tone is airy enough, even when Owen driving an armored truck through an entire cemetery is kind of questionable in taste for what is supposed to be an exciting escape sequence. The “but…is it funny?” litmus test largely depends on one’s tolerance for Adam DeVine and his madcap mugging and squealing. DeVine can be funny and charming when the material is right, or he can be too over-the-top and annoying. In both the physical comedy and his sing-song line delivery, he’s a little bit of both here as Owen with all of his animated faces and overcaffeinated, Jimmy Carrey-level energy.
One wonders what they could have done with sharper material, but Pierce Brosnan and Ellen Barkin are making the most of these cool parents/robbers, particularly Brosnan as a handsome badass who smells like “sandalwood and danger.” There’s also a cute nod to James Bond that gets in and gets out without belaboring itself. The likable Nina Dobrev isn’t given much to do as Parker, although she does ace the deadpan delivery on one line, “I look like a meth-head lottery winner marrying Machine Gun Kelly at a cruise boat casino.” Richard Kind and Julie Hagerty are reliably quirky for a few laughs as Owen’s “too much” parents, who are just worried about the nickel-free silverware at the wedding. Poorna Jagaannathan is having a ton of fun with a profane, wickedly playful verve to her kill-happy money launderer.
There is also a deep-bench supporting cast, including Michael Rooker, Lil Rel Howery, DeVine’s Workaholics co-star/co-creator Blake Anderson, Lauren Lapkus (who’s very game as the emasculating manager of a rival bank), and Jackie Sandler (Adam’s wife) and Betsy Sodaro in an amusing bit as the sister owners of a vegan bakery.
As a Netflix-Happy Madison production without Adam Sandler himself, one could find worse ways to spend a rainy night on the couch. Through the sheer good will of its ensemble, The Out-Laws knows its place as a deeply silly, undemanding throwaway. It’s never as riotous or clever as it could have been but passable as a summer diversion that would have aired on the TBS Superstation back in 2003.
The Out-Laws is currently streaming on Netflix.
Rating: 2.5/5
