THE OUT-LAWS ON NETFLIX IS A FUNNY TAKE ON MEETING THE NEW FAMILY

One would say the most stressful and anticipated part of a serious relationship is the moment you know you will be meeting their family. These are the people that you will be spending holidays with, going to other family gatherings like weddings and graduations, and sharing your kids with someday. I’m amazed when I hear of people that haven’t met their in-laws until shortly before they get married. Being from a small town you just don’t hear about that too often. Imagine if the first time you met your in-laws it was a few days before your wedding and they seem like really cool people. However, you quickly find out they aren’t all that great and are in fact very bad people. How do you tell the person of your dreams that their parents aren’t who they think they are without possibly losing them? That’s the premise of Netflix’s “The Out-Laws” where the groom finds out his fiancé’s parents are notorious bank robbers.

This is a new take on the twist of meeting the new family and not getting along with them. Sitcoms and other rom-com movies have touched on it before with varying effects. Usually, the main character is mostly likeable and you’re rooting for them to pull through this dilemma. In this case Adam Devine plays Owen Browning, a bank manager who is perky and nice, but not much of a man’s man. You don’t hate him you just find the character slightly annoying. He is marrying Parker, played by Nina Dobrev who’s parents are world travelers that she rarely sees and says they are currently in the jungle working with an indigenous tribe. She is happily surprised when they say they can make it to the wedding and Owen is equally – no overly excited not just for her, but for him to meet them. He gets so excited that he overdoes every action and thought about meeting them. Pierce Brosnan plays Billy McDermott and Ellen Barkin plays Lilly as too very cool and fun people whose combined good looks gave the world the equally good-looking Parker. What we quickly find out is that they are the Ghost Bandits (no word on if Marv from Home Alone named them) who are the greatest bank robbers in the world. And this is not a spoiler but what bank to they immediately rob within a day of arriving? The one Owen manages. It is in fact done easily and Owen quickly deduces their identity thus putting him in the tight spot of telling his fiancé and risk ruining their relationship. It is a novel concept for the film and makes for some interesting comedic moments.

First off I really like the cast they put together. They all play well off each other, and Owen’s parents played by Richard Kind and Julie Hagerty are a great opposite of the McDermotts in their personalities. Other than Owen’s coworkers he really doesn’t have any friends as groomsmen or anything like that as part of the script to help him along the way. So, that whole “buddy giving bad advice” aspect is removed as a possibility which is a nice change. Brosnan and Barkin both play charming and bad in equal and manners in their scenes. While Dobrev is kind of put to the side for the dynamic of the story of Owen and her parents she really helps the audience understand why she loves this quirky guy. Devine is in his element playing a bit of a lovable loser. He has this way about him that makes you like him in respect to his character but also kind of want to walk away from him at a party as he awkwardly spits out movie lines while laughing nervously to himself. You don’t root for him because he’s the handsome charming guy that you typically see in the role, but because his heart is so pure that he is a symbol of guys like him that you know that deserve love as much as if he looked like Ryan Reynolds and was half as charming. The cast plays well together for the most part, but sometimes it seems like Owen is a little too much of a not-so-manly man and his antics eat up too much of the scenes where he could be having funnier or more bonding moments with the McDermotts. In fact at one point it feels like a chunk of the movie was removed and we were rushed up to the next act without giving the film a moment to breathe. To allow the characters to have a moment of revelation to make their bond a bit stronger. There are some pretty funny scenes in The Out-Laws, but nothing really super memorable that you’ll be quoting with your friends. It’s just a nice funny movie that you can sit and watch and maybe agree that it was OK to watch but not good enough to go back and watch it several times over when you need a good laugh. Put it on your watch list, but understand you won’t be going back too often, if ever to relive the laughs. It’s too bad really because this film had excellent potential to be much bigger and funnier if they just would have let the characters have more moments for the comedy to grow. I wouldn’t even change the actors necessarily but would change the direction so that they could become the family we want them to be and expand on the comedic moments that we see in the trailer that drew me in in the first place. I give it a solid “OK”.