Drones + lots of droning = sci-fi mess ‘Outside the Wire’
Yet another Netflix meatand-potatoes original that boasts a strong cast headed by Anthony Mackie and talented Brit Damson Idris, “Outside the Wire” takes a promising near-future sci-fi plot about two U.S. soldiers, one of them a cyborg, and manages to screw it up entirely. The trouble is the screenplay by Rowan Athale, whose credits are a mystery to me, and videogame writer Rob Yescombe (“Rambo: The Video Game”). In unconvincing opening scenes set in 2036 America, drone pilot Lt. Thomas Harp (Idris) disobeys a direct order and sacrifices two Marines in order — or so he thinks — to save their 38 fellow comrades.
As punishment, Harp is sent to a dystopian Eastern Europe, where he gets beaten up by the leader of the Marines. Moreover, Harp is assigned to find a Ukrainian warlord with Russian ties who is trying to get the codes for old nukes the Soviets installed in the region.
Harp’s partner in this impossible quest to find and exterminate the warlord, whose name is Victor Koval (Pilou Asbaek of “Game of Thrones”), before he nukes Washington, D.C., or Paris, maybe, is cyborg Capt. Leo (Mackie). Also in the mix are robotic dogs and robotic soldiers on both sides called “Gumps.” I assume they are named after Forrest Gump, but no one in the film confirms my suspicion.
It’s a simple enough and even promising premise. But in the hands of director Mikael Hafstrom, whose career has slid downhill since “1408” (2007), and these writers, “Outside the Wire” is confusing and full of pointless expository scenes in which Harp and cyborg Capt. Leo explain the plot and characters to one another endlessly, and the more they explain it, the less comprehensible it becomes.
Shut the front door, I kept repeating at the screen. Yes, you need some thing and certainly some words in between the shootouts and explosions, and that is what witty banter and amusing bickering or blissful silence were meant for. Instead, we get more military jargon and the machinations of the Resistance and arguments about who should be in charge: human or machine.
One major sequence involving a bank safe containing the codes and the military’s attempt to kill Koval, aka the Terror of the Balkans, is an excuse for more shootouts, explosions, pointless filler and faceless cannon fodder. Why is Leo’s torso semi-transparent and who is going to fall for the bit about him patching himself up with literal patches? This 114-minute film could easily have been 90, and I could certainly have done with less of the dire drumbeats of Hans Zimmer protege Lorne Balfe (“Terminator: Genisys”). What is Emily Beecham (“Little Joe”) doing in this testosterone-fueled rubbish?
One might see “Outside the Wire” as a rollout of automobile endorsements: Jeep, Escalade, Chevy, etc., although you may wonder why they all look like 2021 models. Mackie also produced the film and can be credited with the quality of the effects and photography. How he failed to see the trouble with the screenplay is beyond me.