Outside the Wire
netflixOutside the Wire is the new Netflix action flick that promises to numb for a couple of hours on a Friday evening. A promise it certainly delivers on.
Damson Idris stars as Thomas Harp, a drone operator in a future Eastern European civil war. The opening battle scene showcases the un-extravagance of a squadron of robot soldiers called Gumps, while flaunting Harp’s tendency disobey his superior’s commands. This break in the chain causes Harp to be partnered with Anthony Mackie’s Leo, a no-shit taking officer, who is also a top-secret android in disguise. Their aim is to find warlord leader Viktor Koval (Pilou Asbaek) and take him out to change the course of war. Overall, it’s a fairly generic plot that should rely on delivering good action.
However, director Mikael Håfström tries to deliver something deeper. There are very heavy-handed attempts at delivering a strong anti-war stance throughout. Harp comes to a children’s shelter and is called out on the fact that deploying drones has caused them to lose their homes. Shots of civilians being gunned down or hostages taking a bullet are deliberately graphic and do stick in the mind.
Yet, if it was Håfström’s intent to present an anti-war film, he ultimately fails. For every brutal outburst of violence there is an obnoxious Hollywood action sequence that showcases everything from robot on robot action to John Woo inspired over the top-ness. A ridiculous bullet ballet with Mackie and Asbaek takes the cake here. To deliver an important message, it makes no sense to glorify the action and violence in one scene, only to decry it in the next. Håfström struggles to decide whether he wants this to be a superhero movie - Mackie’s character is effectively an all-American super soldier, unashamedly mimicking the Captain America of Marvel films, a character he is inexplicably tied to.
The robotic additions to the story feel needless. The Gumps themselves genuinely add nothing to any part of the story, other than to serve as a slightly tougher adversary in one scene. The fact that Leo is an android is also similarly unfulfilled. Perhaps this character choice was to merely add a sci-fi slant to the story, continuously grounding the fact that this is a ‘future’ war and not reminiscent of any current affairs.
The only promising thing here is Idris. Despite some weak material, he leaves an impression and this project that might serve as a steppingstone to future spotlight. Outside the Wire has fallen into the all too familiar, and disappointingly average, genre of a Netflix movie.