Stometer
Save your money for something good and enjoyable
Sienna-Rose Mclaughlin
The movie really just wants to entertain people.
Billy Ollie
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
davideo-2
STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning Nathan Hyde (Nigel Harman) is ekking out a quiet existence in a remote seaside location as a chef, until he starts talking to an attractive woman in the restaurant. One thing leads to another and they end up in bed- but the woman has been a little devious and before he knows it he's taken hostage by helicopter. It's here we learn that Nathan has a bit of an extraordinary past, as an expert evasion expert. Now an organisation known as The Establishment want him to sneak into an island and retrieve a stolen painting. Nathan's doubts are removed when his daughter's safety comes to rest on it...Long running British soap opera East Enders has never been renowned for it's stellar acting and has yet to produce a Sean Bean or Ben Kingsley. But that doesn't stop some of it's stars, such as hunky Nigel Harman, from trying to avoid disappearing into the realms of panto land forever and so we have The Outsiders, a distracting but totally unmemorable and rather corny take on the spy/world-wide mega-lomaniac premise. The writer is obviously a fan of the sort of spy thrillers that were about a lot in the 60s and the whole idea seems to have been lifted from one that I don't know the name of (it was spoofed on The Simpsons once!) But in trying to make it appeal to a more modern audience, this ITV production has just managed a campy retro feel rather than a trendy new one. **
adam
The Outsiders was actually better than i thought it would be although there was room for some improvement. It was an entertaining 90 minutes and the producers certainly made the Mersey locations believably foreign. The whole premise of Nigel Harman playing a retired 'agent' for Minus 12 was well handled and made for a good start to the story as we picked up on what was going on. I think there is definitely room for a series out of this, but hopefully the producers will drop some of the daft effects that hurt the overall feel of The Outsiders. The wholly unconvincing table based viewing screen and naff looking underground complex for Minus 12 to start with! Overall it was well worth watching and I do hope we get to see more...
garyl1966
In the mad dash to give Nigel Harman a starring role post "Eastenders" TV producers have given us a threadbare super spy caper. The actingly challenged Harmon can be forgiven for jumping at the chance to play a bargain basement Bond (right down to having Colin Salmon as a background operative) but the entire production was laughable.The plot was far too moderate to be thrown around with such reckless abandon. The "action" zipped around the world for no apparent reason and the actors all spoke as though they were highlighting plot points rather than actually speaking. Obviously the makers had never seen any of the Austin Powers films, or if they had they didn't quite pick up on the fact that that those films were at least intentional comedies.Brian Cox turned in his usual mentor role (is money that short Brian?) and the aforementioned Salmon must have baulked at allowing his character to be smacked around by Harmon's character given that the later is half his size. Unfortunately that was as believable as everything else in this production.I only hope this piece of rubbish is never shown abroad, and we can keep it as a little British embarrassment.
square-eyed
If you absolutely adore Nigel Harman this is so for you, I am one of those people and from the moment he came jogging onto the screen in tracksuits, a nuclear war couldn't make me turn the TV off. The whole programme is well acted though and has some skill shots incidenlty whoever decided to dress Harman in black and leather and hoodies and suits all the way through deserves a medal! The plot however has so many holes it is ridiculous, seriously nothing is explained to you and the script is hardly skillful and the fact that it was made for drama shows in it's feeble attempts at CGI.Whoever wrote the script though had obviously been up all night watching pirated copies of James Bond and the Da Vinci Code though, it is a truellly shockingly bad script. I also have no idea why they got Brian Cox in for perhaps a day's filming?! Cut some of the ridiculous close ups of the 'baddie's knowing smiles' and give us some more of him!!However I am glad I watched it and will try to again, it's a lot of fun if you can somehow block out the plot and just enjoy
