Outside the Wire (2021): A Short Review

Outside the Wire (2021) is a Science-Fiction Action film directed by Mikael Hafstrom and starring Anthony Mackie and Damson Idris. The movie is set in a not-so-far-away future Ukraine, where the parochialist warlords are wreaking havoc and the United States Military have been called in to ‘keep the peace’. Damson Idris plays Harp, a drone operator who, having disobeyed an order from his superior, has been sent to the seasoned super soldier Leo, played by Anthony Mackie. This action is supposed to punish Harp, since Leo conducts dangerous ground operations. The two set out on a mission to stop a Ukrainian warlord/ terrorist from taking control of, you guessed it, nukes.

Outside the Wire feels like it was made in the wrong decade. While it capitalizes on the complicated political situations in Ukraine, its use of Russian-sounding villains in the form of Ukrainian warlords is reminiscent of an old school action flick from the 1980s. Unfortunately, the movie does not have as much fun with its premise as those movies would have done. While Stallone and Schwarzenegger spit out one-liners, Mackie is content with just brooding and throwing some banter here and there. The style is remarkably similar to the modern superhero styles pioneered by Marvel studios. The characters are made to be human and the actions are supposed to be more realistic and grittier.

(Image credit: CNN)

Perhaps that is why Anthony Mackie is brought in. But where this method of placing Avengers-style action in a real-world worked okay for Chris Hemsworth in Extraction, this particular effort falls a little flat. This is maybe because Mackie’s character is quite literally a super-soldier. He is a bioengineered being who resembles humans in pretty much every way possible. The best comparison would be the replicants from Blade Runner, but with much less nuance. Mackie plays a great soldier, but we’re not sure if he plays a great replicant. While his charisma is unquestionable, his depth is. In Extraction, Hemsworth gets a shot at playing the sincere guy to win over the audience, however, Mackie was denied this chance due to a bad direction the film chose to take.

One argument to remedy this might be that Mackie isn’t the main character. He’s just the most bankable star. In fact, Damson Idris’ Harp is the main character. And while Idris plays the character well enough, there is really nothing remarkable about Harp as a person. To be clear, the script did allow for character growth and Idris did manage to pull it off. But somehow this arc feels like an arbitrary addition, something a film student would include to bump up their grades. His character is supposed to become stronger and more adept, but due to poor directing, we never see that progression. Take a relatively mid-grade action movie like last year’s The Rhythm Section and we still feel that Blake Lively’s character is becoming stronger as the story progresses. The director signposts this with visual symbols and audio cues through which we can observe the character’s growth. This movie does not have any of that, hence we never really latch on to Harp’s character. And since he’s not very good for most of the movie, we don’t particularly enjoy watching him.

(Image credit: Looper)

So far, this feels like the description of a mediocre action film. But there are things that make Outside the Wire justifiably bad. In particular, this movie references the political situations in Ukraine. Now it was only six years ago that we were hearing news stories about the war in Donbas. The wound is still there. So, it’s a bit strange to see an outright science fiction movie about the war in Ukraine this year. In fact, it’s as if the filmmakers are saying that because there’s going to be a war anyway, so why not make a film about it. Worse, this movie tries to make political arguments about it. And while a lot of the broad strokes of the argument does make sense, particularly the criticism of the USA’s involvement in pretty much everything, they still feel incredibly shallow. At least while Extraction horrendously exploits the sub-alternity of Bangladesh and Bengal, they didn’t try to be smart about it. Extraction makes no pretence that it’s a dumb shoot-em-up gun-fest with very little research behind it. Outside the Wire is making statements about American imperialism, Russian chauvinism, corruption in Ukraine and even what it means to be human. But these criticisms fall flat.

(Image credit: Mama's Geeky)

They didn’t fall flat because they’re wrong, but because they are made in shallow, meaningless assertions. And these kinds of shallow assertions make you realize that the filmmakers didn’t do much research prior to filming it. It wouldn’t surprise us if it turns out the filmmakers wanted to set this in Afghanistan or Kashmir or wherever there’s a war, but just couldn’t find enough Asians to fill the screen. And then they thought about what place that has a war right now that might be filled with white people. Maybe that’s why this movie is set in Ukraine. We also get this feeling because the set itself is so vague. It’s not even clear where it is. Really, the only thing that tells us it’s in Ukraine is the lazy title cards.