Rating: R, for relentless violence and profanity
Available via: Netflix
By Derrick Bang
Lazy science-fiction is truly annoying.
Actually, Netflix’s “Outside the Wire” barely qualifies; it’s really just a testosterone-fueled, shoot-’em-up war flick with superficial sci-fi trimmings. Scripters Rowan Athale and Rob Yescombe rely on attitude rather than the slightest hint of character depth, or the philosophical issues of their clichéd scenario.
Their grunt-level sensibilities become obvious immediately two minutes in! when everybody onscreen relentlessly employs F-bombs as adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, verbs and interjections. That’s just tiresome.
Mikael Håfström helms this mess with the subtlety of a charging rhinoceros. No surprise, given a résumé of similarly undistinguished thrillers and horror flicks (“Drowning Ghost,” “Derailed,” “Escape Plan,” etc.). Ergo, we shouldn’t expect anything better here.