The Outsider (2002)

Originally Written
Thursday, June 23, 2005

The Outsider stars Tim Daly as the wounded killer John Guild and Naomi Watts as Rebecca Yoder, a Quaker woman, who takes in John when she discovers him almost dead outside her farm. Rebecca's husband was recently killed by men who had wanted to buy their land, but her husband had refused to sell it to them. Like many westerns these men follow the orders of the big cheese who essential owns the nearby town including the sheriff and has the power to getaway with whatever he wants.

The Outsider lacks a gripping storyline, its main plot that's been seen many times before dealing with the cohabitation of two completely different classes of individuals, the Quaker and the outlaw and how they come to fall in love. The villains are weak, and almost a side note in the film, quickly dispensed of in the final minutes. And half expecting a brutal western I guess I was a little disappointed in the fact that The Outsider is really more of a drama set in the west than it is an actual western type film, with hardly any action, except for the brief gun battle near the end.

Overall, the acting is decent, with Naomi Watts and even Tim Daly (most well known for the sitcom Wings) putting forth believable performances, but the film tends to drag, speeding up here and there but never enough to really get the film moving. I'm surprised Naomi took this role, made in only 2002, I would think at this time in her career she could have done better than a Showtime movie.

5/10