Admittedly I am a fan of British crime/underworld films in general and thus entered the film with a positive attitude, however I don't understand the hatred at all.
I found this film to be one of the most realistic in comparison to films of a similar plot. The Outlaws were not portrayed to immediately discover they are all natural vigilantes and proceed to embarrass the police force, government and other antagonists in a Robin Hood and his Merry Men fairy tale. It took a great deal of time for the group to do anything of relative success, as I'm sure would almost certainly be the case in real life. Sandy never did personally exact revenge and ultimately just walked away from the group, he didn't make an epic return, he didn't swing from a vine and disarm a troop of SWATs, this was an accurate illustration that after being battered and disfigured by yobs, not everyone will stand and fight back, some will be emotionally disturbed and will never truly recover, especially the young and impressionable.
I felt the characters were built very well in that I liked who I was supposed to like and vice versa which is rare for me. The problem with British underworld set films is that the majority of the time, the good guys are violent, cold-blooded, criminal and underhanded as are the bad guys, making distinction between the two pointless and leaving you to just pick favourites from a group of scum. However, in Outlaw, the situations which lead to the formation of the vigilante group made you understand and fully accept the motives of the heroes. Manning's character was not built at all, in fact I don't even recall him having a line, this was clever, he was distant, you had no reason to like him, why are you to care if he dies, especially after the things he's done? In many other films, the bad guys get great lines, better built characters than the heroes and are ultimately far more memorable and much less bland than the good guys, this is okay in some respects, I'm not saying Star Wars would have been better if Darth Vader had one line and two minutes airtime but in the case of this film, the distance was an excellent tool. Manning's right-hand man Furlong was immediately made unlikeable and impossible to root for when it was dropped that he was a child molester, unimaginative and uncreative, arguably, but it did the job. I wanted Furlong dead. This was the required effect.
Hillier being rejected by Bryant was a dangerous move, he was a nutter, he battered Sandy's attackers, he was more blindly loyal to the group than anyone else, he castrated and attempted to put to death the child molester Furlong, he was an old friend of babyface Gekker, he stood by Bryant throughout, but only due to well written lines and good acting that kept him from being entirely likable throughout did it seem sensible for Bryant to reject him. This could have easily distorted the storyline, left a popular character without a resolution and decreased the popularity of the mob-leader, but it didn't, because the actor was good and his lines were good.
Munroe I also felt was well built. A lesser writer would have had blind rage engulf Munroe and without a second thought he heads straight out and kills everyone in his path, but it didn't pan out like that. He was a barrister, a family man, an upstanding member of society, in real life these things would not just disappear in a puff of smoke. Despite his pain and turmoil from what Manning did to him, killers don't become killers overnight in real life, he would find it hard morally to physically punish individuals, he would question whether a vigilante mob was really the resolution, he would almost certainly take a kicking in his first fight.
The only plot hole that was apparent to me in the film was the absence of Gekker's fiancée throughout, as in why didn't she notice that her husband-to-be was coming home at ridiculous hours tense and bleeding and disappearing for days on end. However she wasn't forgotten, and I think the wedding run-off tied the loose end a bit by showing that the injustice of Manning's case and the Outlaws as a whole had clearly consumed Gekker massively and his fiancée had been way down his list of priorities from the second the car crash beat-down occurred, and the liberation of Gekker in the final seconds of the movie was an awesome ending.
Finally, Bob Hoskins. The early character twist was great when he bugged Munroe's coat and demanded to meet with Bryant, I didn't want Hoskins to be a villain, I didn't want him to threaten and lecture Bryant, and when he popped the story about chavs burning a 79-year-old woman to death and his rejection after 25 years on the force it was the final straw for the audience as far as respecting the police force went and Furlong shooting Hoskins was an excellent moment in that it shot the Furlong hatred a huge amount and eliminated Hoskins in a productive way rather than have his character become obscure and unnecessary later in the film.
In conclusion, I really enjoyed this and I think pretty much everyone, most notably Bryant, Gekker, Lewis and Hillier were played by exactly who they should have been played by and written exactly as they should have been.
I found this film to be one of the most realistic in comparison to films of a similar plot. The Outlaws were not portrayed to immediately discover they are all natural vigilantes and proceed to embarrass the police force, government and other antagonists in a Robin Hood and his Merry Men fairy tale. It took a great deal of time for the group to do anything of relative success, as I'm sure would almost certainly be the case in real life. Sandy never did personally exact revenge and ultimately just walked away from the group, he didn't make an epic return, he didn't swing from a vine and disarm a troop of SWATs, this was an accurate illustration that after being battered and disfigured by yobs, not everyone will stand and fight back, some will be emotionally disturbed and will never truly recover, especially the young and impressionable.
I felt the characters were built very well in that I liked who I was supposed to like and vice versa which is rare for me. The problem with British underworld set films is that the majority of the time, the good guys are violent, cold-blooded, criminal and underhanded as are the bad guys, making distinction between the two pointless and leaving you to just pick favourites from a group of scum. However, in Outlaw, the situations which lead to the formation of the vigilante group made you understand and fully accept the motives of the heroes. Manning's character was not built at all, in fact I don't even recall him having a line, this was clever, he was distant, you had no reason to like him, why are you to care if he dies, especially after the things he's done? In many other films, the bad guys get great lines, better built characters than the heroes and are ultimately far more memorable and much less bland than the good guys, this is okay in some respects, I'm not saying Star Wars would have been better if Darth Vader had one line and two minutes airtime but in the case of this film, the distance was an excellent tool. Manning's right-hand man Furlong was immediately made unlikeable and impossible to root for when it was dropped that he was a child molester, unimaginative and uncreative, arguably, but it did the job. I wanted Furlong dead. This was the required effect.
Hillier being rejected by Bryant was a dangerous move, he was a nutter, he battered Sandy's attackers, he was more blindly loyal to the group than anyone else, he castrated and attempted to put to death the child molester Furlong, he was an old friend of babyface Gekker, he stood by Bryant throughout, but only due to well written lines and good acting that kept him from being entirely likable throughout did it seem sensible for Bryant to reject him. This could have easily distorted the storyline, left a popular character without a resolution and decreased the popularity of the mob-leader, but it didn't, because the actor was good and his lines were good.
Munroe I also felt was well built. A lesser writer would have had blind rage engulf Munroe and without a second thought he heads straight out and kills everyone in his path, but it didn't pan out like that. He was a barrister, a family man, an upstanding member of society, in real life these things would not just disappear in a puff of smoke. Despite his pain and turmoil from what Manning did to him, killers don't become killers overnight in real life, he would find it hard morally to physically punish individuals, he would question whether a vigilante mob was really the resolution, he would almost certainly take a kicking in his first fight.
The only plot hole that was apparent to me in the film was the absence of Gekker's fiancée throughout, as in why didn't she notice that her husband-to-be was coming home at ridiculous hours tense and bleeding and disappearing for days on end. However she wasn't forgotten, and I think the wedding run-off tied the loose end a bit by showing that the injustice of Manning's case and the Outlaws as a whole had clearly consumed Gekker massively and his fiancée had been way down his list of priorities from the second the car crash beat-down occurred, and the liberation of Gekker in the final seconds of the movie was an awesome ending.
Finally, Bob Hoskins. The early character twist was great when he bugged Munroe's coat and demanded to meet with Bryant, I didn't want Hoskins to be a villain, I didn't want him to threaten and lecture Bryant, and when he popped the story about chavs burning a 79-year-old woman to death and his rejection after 25 years on the force it was the final straw for the audience as far as respecting the police force went and Furlong shooting Hoskins was an excellent moment in that it shot the Furlong hatred a huge amount and eliminated Hoskins in a productive way rather than have his character become obscure and unnecessary later in the film.
In conclusion, I really enjoyed this and I think pretty much everyone, most notably Bryant, Gekker, Lewis and Hillier were played by exactly who they should have been played by and written exactly as they should have been.
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