most frustrating of all is how "The Outsider" refuses to shift its focus away from its title character, even when the film makes a point of how this story might be more engaging from a Japanese perspective
merging standard gangster movie cliches of both the Japanese and American variety, The Outsider only manages to be ultra-violent and ultra-dull simultaneously
if the film's not going to interrogate the politics behind its core premise of an army man's quest to out-Asian actual Asian men, it's scarcely worth telling at all
dull, flavorless, and fundamentally incurious, "The Outsider" is a clueless misfire, the cinematic equivalent of a study-abroad student showing off the kanji forearm tattoo whose meaning he never bothered to learn
by Charles Bramesco [The Guardian ]
