A Hollywood satire that loses its targets.
Jonah Hill has made a name for himself in the comedy world with hits like “Superbad” and “21 Jump Street,” as well as serious roles in “Moneyball” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.” And he has proven his directing abilities with “Mid-90s.”
This year, he has two directing jobs: “Outcome” and “Cut Off.” For now, I must talk about “Outcome,” which is streaming on AppleTV and is supposed to be a Hollywood satire about cancel culture, but it doesn’t know the meaning of the words “satire” or “comedy.” I’m surprised it wasn’t a fake trailer on the AppleTV show “The Studio,” especially when we get these fake looking ambiance of the sunny and colorful looking ocean and A-list stars like Keanu Reeves, Cameron Diaz, and Martin Scorsese in the mix.
Reeves plays as Reef Hawk, a celebrated actor with two Oscars, three successful franchises, and a lot of problems in his mind. His friends (Matt Bomer and Cameron Diaz) both know he’s a good person, and no matter how hard he tries, he can’t find any bad comments about himself on Google. He can type “Reef Hawk is a bad person” or “Reef Hawk drinks” all he wants, but all good things. And I’m not even sure if they are imaginary friends if they have one scene talking to a different person, but they sure seem like them if they’re only seen with Reef for the rest of the film.
I was thinking back to “Jay Kelly,” which had George Clooney as an actor facing the crossroads of his life. That was an enjoyable movie, especially when it used real movie footage for Kelly’s tribute like “Michael Clayton” and “Out of Sight.” And it represented his choices in a poetic and honest fashion. “Outcome” is just going through the motions, so no signature Baumbach trademarks here.
His crisis lawyer (a barely recognizable Hill with a bald head and a grey beard like he’s going for that Joe Pantoliano look) informs him about an uploaded video from his past in what happens to be some kind of extortion scheme or cancel culture, and he advises the actor to make right with the people he has wronged.
Maybe it’s Martin Scorsese as his agent whom he fired a long time ago. Maybe it’s David Spade as his new neighbor, tenet, and expecting early 60s dad. And maybe it’s Susan Lucci as his “Real Housewives” star mother Dinah, whom he hasn’t spoken to since she appeared on her show. It could be anyone.
Reeves has gotten his acting back on track, and even in his 60s, he still has the ability to be cool, funny, and open-minded about his roles. But “Outcome” makes him out to be a self-loathing cynic who faces his problems basically on repeat. You also have Diaz and Spade trying to make comebacks, but they don’t have any character development. In fact, the blackmail scheme starts to fall apart completely without anymore basis.
Hill can be both an actor or filmmaker, based on my analysis on him, but “Outcome” is almost as wasted as “Fool’s Paradise,” which had Charlie Day directing himself as a mute dealing with every cliche in the Hollywood lifestyle book. This one makes absolutely no sense when it comes to its views on cancel culture, and has everyone speaking like their lines were written by a committee. They’re practically aliens, all except for Scorsese, who has to likability as both a filmmaker and actor. But his last Apple film “Killers of the Flower Moon” was actually a film. This one is a spoof, and a pretty lousy one at that, especially when Drew Barrymore cameos with a terrible movie outburst.
Streaming on AppleTV Tomorrow