Outcome
Jonah Hill's latest directorial effort is heavy on inside baseball and not on laughs.
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I generally like Jonah Hill as an actor. I’ve genuinely liked the movies he’s directed to date (“Mid90s” and “Stutz”). His latest is “Outcome” (streaming on Apple TV beginning Friday, April 10). I didn’t much care for the film nor his performance in it.
Keanu Reeves stars as Reef Hawk, a recovering heroin addict and the biggest movie star in the world. Reef’s taken five years off of acting to get clean and he’s on the precipice of making his return with his biggest movie to date, but a crisis rears its ugly head.
There’s a damning video of Reef that could damage his career and reputation and whomever is in possession of it wants to be paid in order for it to disappear.
Reef’s fixer/lawyer Ira Slitz (a bald and bearded Hill - sorta resembling his psychiatrist Phil Stutz) advises him to make amends with anyone he might’ve wronged as they’re likely the blackmailer. These mea culpas are one of 12 steps, but in this case they’re being used for career resuscitation/resurrection as opposed to sobriety.
The aggrieved parties are Reef’s bowling alley-based first manager Richie “Red” Rodriguez (Martin Scorsese, lending the project credibility and warmth), his “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star mother Dinah (soap opera legend Susan Lucci) and ex-girlfriend Savannah (Welker White, the babysitting drug runner from Scorsese’s “Goodfellas”).
Other parties with beef against Reef include his besties Kyle (Cameron Diaz, reuniting with Reeves for the first time since 1996’s also not good “Feeling Minnesota”) and Xander (Matt Bomer), who suffered through helping him get clean and are scared shitless he might relapse under stress.
“Outcome” has maybe five laughs in its 83-minute runtime. Much of it feels like superficial Hollywood hokum as opposed to something of depth. Reeves is tasked with much of the dramatic heavy lifting and offers an interesting and affecting performance, but he’s betrayed by Hill and Ezra Woods’ screenplay at almost every turn. If Reef’s supposed to be a bastard, he ain’t nearly scummy enough. The worst of it is Reef getting snippy with Kyle, but that’s only after she snarls at him first. Even the infamous video in question isn’t indicative of a bad dude, but rather a sad and lonely one.
Hill looks weird, acts weird and made a weird and often unfunny movie. He and Woods have penned another film called “Cut Off” with Hill again directing that’s supposed to hit later this year. Here’s hoping the “Outcome” is better with that one.