The Outsider

I don't have to tell you the next bit. Same as always. Mr. Rich Cattleman tears down all their fences to run his cattle, and insists that the land is his and has always been his, since his great grandpappy worked it in the time of the Caesars. The cattle baron and his gang of roughnecks then proceed to shoot a bunch of sheep, whereupon Mr Cattleman offers to buy the farm from Naomi's husband. The husband refuses, Mr Cattleman strings him up as a cattle thief, and Naomi is left as a helpless widow with a small boy and a bunch of sheep. The Cattle Dude figures that Naomi must sell to him at that point.

Not yet available for sale, but Blockbuster has the DVD as a rental exclusive.

No features.
No widescreen.

Now I don't have to tell you that the plot supplies a convenient deus ex machina to save the day for her, but I do have to tell you precisely what it is. Tim Daly is the world's greatest gunslinger, fastest gun in the West, and he is wandering around dazed and injured somewhere on Naomi's land.

We now return to the regularly scheduled parts that I don't need to tell you about. She nurses him back to health, and .... Well, as I said, you know the rest.

It is way, way, way too long (119 minutes) for a film with nary an original thought.

The Critics Vote

no major reviews online

The People Vote ...

IMDB summary. IMDb voters score it 7.0/10. That is way too high. I suppose it will settle in at 5.5 or so.

The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by genre fans, while C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-.

Based on this description, this film is a D+. Tim Daly and Naomi Watts are surprisingly good in this movie, but there was nothing they could have done to overcome the script. Daly has a painting somewhere that is aging in his place. He is 46 years old, and looks 10 years younger.