Outrage – Review

Takeshi Kitano newest debuted at Cannes and the international world waited in great anticipation. The master was returning to the genre that made his name for the first time in ten years, the trailer looked promising and everyone was wondering if he could pull off another film to stand next to the likes of Violent Cop, Sonatine and his masterpiece Hana-bi (Fireworks). Then reviews started coming out and everyone seemed to have a very lukewarm opinion of it, at best. Common cries of “It’s dull!” and exceedingly clever quips of “More like OUTRAGEously slow! Haha! Get it guys?” poured out from Cannes. I’m here to put this mystery to rest people, especially since most people haven’t had an opportunity to catch it yet. Don’t worry, you can thank me later. I like gift cards.

Outrage is truly his oddest Yakuza work yet, and it is not because of subject matter or the gap of ten years making him mature in some way since his last Yakuza film. What really strikes me is how this plays like a very typical Yakuza film that you may have seen from any other director, in any period of the genres history. Sure there are typical Kitano touches, his dark comedy and bursts of extreme violence are present as always, but there are many sequences that he usually would never film. Kitano has never been one to glorify violence aesthetically or make it a thrilling focal point and yet, there are a few spots of typical action film nonsense. Guys walking into rooms and shooting everyone down, Kitano did an extremely similar sequence in Sonatine but in a much more effective an unorthodox way.

With its multiple finger severing and honor laced sacrifices, I can’t decide if Kitano is lampooning useless Japanese and Yakuza honor. For certain, there is one early sequence that is played for great comic effect, but later on it seems the humor has been sucked out of the room and we are only left with a seriously straight take on everything. Am I seeing a flaw in the film? Is Kitano playing a drier gag than usual and I’m not catching it? Or maybe he is aware of this and decided to play it straight to make a serious attempt at critiquing these ways. I’m not entirely sure but I know it really throws the movie into a confused cycle. To continue on a point Daniel Kasman made in his article on Outrage (http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/1916 ), it seems Kitano is sort of parodying the entire genre by taking his revered stature and pumping out a rather cliched by the books Yakuza series as he has already started work on a sequel. Whether or not this is a purposeful parody of the genre and works like Johnnie To’s Election series, it really does feel like Kitano is trying to make this his finale in the genre so he can tell everyone to leave him alone and let him work on his other projects.

Outrage is by no means a bad film, it’s just a typical Yakuza film which is very disappointing news when it comes from a master like Kitano. If you love Yakuza film, you’ll have no problems here. If you like oddly racist caricatures of African ambassadors, I guess this will really work for you.