yeah_sure

As in various thrillers (like Bourne Identity), the plot is centered around the amnesia of the protagonist: he tries to find out who he was, who killed his wife and son, who are the people that come up to him after he wakes from his coma, what are their real motivations, and what dark secret is behind it all.

I had only three gripes: 1) Lazar's flashbacks allow us to suspect the identity of the killer too early on; 2) in the action sequences his antagonists seem rather incompetent; 3) Kojo puts on a solid performance, but sometimes Lazar just stares at people with a deadpan expression. Very Serbian no doubt, but takes some getting used to.

The movie kept my interest throughout, and the dark secret revealed at the end is indeed dark. The conclusion is powerful, and reaches beyond a personal tragedy.

Overall a good action thriller, darker than Bourne's Identity, and superior to most Hollywood fare.

A small budget, a few unknown actors, a secluded farm, a global epidemic that turns people into violent lunatics. It COULD work. But it doesn't.

The script has serious problems: it moves too slowly, and ultimately goes nowhere. We have the troubled guy, and the troubled girl. Both have issues. They have to depend on each other to survive, while overcoming their ghosts. All this is established early on, but dragged through ineffective flashbacks and poor dialogue, for far too long.

The infected are too few and far between, and never seem like a real menace. Two people with a crappy rifle and some barbed wire manage to fend them off easily. The doors and windows aren't even reinforced. Most of the time, they could as easily be there on (a very very boring) vacation, rather than in the middle of a world apocalypse.

The characters are not interesting. The guy is dull and clueless. The girl is always annoyed AND annoying. The other girl is just as dull as the guy, and doesn't bring anything new. Their past stories should give us new insights about them, but don't. The (possible) immunity subplot is never properly explored, or settled. Its just thrown in for the sake of it, like too many things in the movie.

Overall, "The Dead Outside" does have some upsides (for a post-apocalyptic movie) - a sense of isolation and lack of hope, a few (very few) mild scares, and the cinematography isn't great, but its watchable. But by the end, you're wondering which is worse: being infected, or being a part of this sad, boring bunch.

The US are over 200 years old, but mentally and intellectually, its like a nation in its teens. Or maybe not even that. Watching the plot and speeches in this series, is like watching a story for children.

Freedom, democracy, we are so big, we are so great, god save America, bla bla bla... Thousands of movies and TV shows, always repeating the same mantra. Don't they get tired? Don't they know that only someone really insecure, needs to affirm himself over and over again? The rest of the world watches Commander in Chief, The West Wing, Air Force One, Behind Enemy Lines, etc etc, and thinks "what rubbish! who are these guys trying to fool?". Its impressive, to see so many millions of people, in such delusion.

If you want to get rich fast, I suggest you become a psychiatrist and move to the US. You'll make millions.

I bought this DVD purely on a lets-give-it-a-try basis, knowing only a few supporting actors, and of course, Tim Roth and Werner Herzog.

I cant say I was disappointed with any of the two: Roth delivers a solid performance as usual, and Herzog manages (although barely) to display his straightforward, albeit compelling, style of telling stories, that keeps both the average movie-going folks, and his more artsy fans, happy and debating the qualities and faults.

This movie would work much better in German, instead of English - a poor choice of Herzog, in my opinion. The awkwardness does add to the atmosphere, up to a certain point, but not all the way.

The same goes for the acting: Roth may seem a bit over the top, but there wasn't really much more that he could do - Ahola and Gourari are below any acting standard, and without pushing his part to the limit, the movie would be as plain as its storyline. To a great extent, Roth carries the story and the movie on his shoulders, from his appearance, until his chilling monologue at the court.

However, much of the rest doesn't really make sense, especially after the first half, when our "hum, how refreshing and original" tolerance has worn out. Anna Gourari and Jacob Wein cant act to save their lives, and some scenes, especially towards the end, like the confrontation at the boat, or the speech at the village, seem just cartoonish and laughable.

The story is also to blame. Some people may leave this movie convinced that they have watched a "true" story, but as any small research will tell you, Breitbart died years before, never met Hanussen, went to the USA, and sold his strength method, Charles Atlas' style. Herzog chose to make a lively tale out of this, where Breitbart foresees the nazi horrors, etc, while living a 'simple' life - but even without knowing better, the final result looks oversimplified.

A final word for Jouko Ahola - at first, I thought he was just some weightlifter, casted somewhat by accident (after listening to Wein and Gourari, one loses all faith in this casting), but he does fit this role with great merit. Extremely real and likable, one doubts that he is even acting - is Ahola playing Breitbart, or is Ahola playing himself, with a borrowed name? He does add to the movie's magic, despite falling short in all the moments that demand more from his acting, than his muscles. But like with his character, I wonder if thats really his fault, or Hanussen/Herzog's fault - like he says, he is «just strong». So strong, in fact, that the real Breitbart looks small in comparison, and so do all the other characters, with the exception of Roth, that he lifts in the air like a child, but without whom he would be lost - in the story, and in the movie.

Too bad, that his strong arms cant lift this movie above its rather simplistic premises. Just the first half, Herzog's attention to detail (the shtetl, 1930's Berlin), Roth and Ahola's performances, each for its own reasons, and a few lasting scenes - Breitbart's first performance, breaking the chains and bending the sword, with the music - make this movie a hard 7.