The Out-Laws (2023) Review!!

Synopsis – A straight-laced bank manager about to marry the love of his life. When his bank is held up by infamous Ghost Bandits during his wedding week, he believes his future in-laws who just arrived in town, are the infamous Out-Laws.

My Take – Over the past decade or so, Adam Sandler’s company, Happy Madison has become synonymous for backing mostly miss than hit productions, mostly which star Sandler himself. Leaving us as a viewer to genuinely debate whether we should risk spending time, particularly with their Netflix offerings.

At first glance, their latest also seemed to have all hallmarks of a classic Sandler film, however, given that he is way too old to play the leading role in such kind of set up, he has gotten Adam DeVine to take over. The result is a film that alternates between unbearably grating and mildly amusing.

Sure, the film isn’t as bad as it could have been, but that’s not saying much. Acting as a poorly executed attempt at a cross between Meet the Parents (2000) style comedy and a heist thriller, this newest effort from director Tyler Spindel (The Wrong Missy) is stuck with a terrible script that is just too slapstick to work with today’s audiences.

Yes, there a few laughs here and there, but for the most part it is just down right annoying, particularly due to DeVine‘s exasperating lead performance, and sadly the film relies heavily on him to uplift the comedy, which he doesn’t.

The story Owen Browning (Adam DeVine), a strait-laced bank manager who is just a few days away from marrying Parker McDermott (Nina Dobrev), an easy-going yoga instructor. While his quirky parents, Neil (Richard Kind) and Margie (Julie Hagerty) aren’t exactly pleased with his choice of fiancée, Owen is enjoying the happiest times in his life. His excitement only gets bigger when he finds out that Parker’s estranged parents, Billy (Pierce Brosnan) and Lilly (Ellen Barkin), are unexpectedly attending the nuptials.

And though his usual antics don’t seem to impress them, Owen’s life turns upside down especially when his bank gets robbed and he begins to suspect that his future in-laws are the pair of infamous bank robbers, known as the Ghost Bandits. Complicating things further are the arrival of Roger Oldham (Michael Rooker), an FBI agent obsessed with catching the Ghost Bandits, and Rehan Zakaryan (Poorna Jagannathan), Billy and Lilly’s unhinged former crime partner who they betrayed in the past.

Though the premise had the potential to be hilarious, sadly the wittiest thing about the film is its title and a James Bond reference by Brosnan’s character. While the robberies committed are often too bizarre for their own good, but the action sequences are quite fun to watch, particularly a second-act car chase that is surprisingly propulsive, well-staged, and delightfully screwball. It’s a testament to either the strength of the set piece itself or the weakness of everything else in the film that no other sequence comes close.

Without a doubt, writers Evan Turner and Ben Zazove‘s script is the weakest element here. Their inability to exercise any level of restraint or discernment when it comes to its various jokes and gags ultimately pulls the final straw. It’s a film that has stronger ingredients than it arguably should but an inability to determine how much to use of each or how to put them together.

Most of the slapstick humor is too 2000s and isn’t too funny in today’s times. The film tries to achieve the screwball intent of the ‘Meet the Parents’ franchise but isn’t able to reach anywhere close to it and falls flat on its face.

It’s more so because the writing relies too much on the performance of DeVine rather than being creative enough to bring on its own humor. A flaw that’s made worse by DeVine’s unhinged, unrestrained, and frequently unbearable performance. His character Owen is so annoyingly moronic that it’s almost unbelievable he could function and hold down any job, let alone a managerial role inside a bank. Owen is supposed to be the normal everyday man put in an extraordinary situation.

Instead, he’s a very unlikable individual forced to work with more unlikable individuals, who are fighting against an extremely unhinged villain. The film is at its best whenever it tempers the lead’s antic turn by shifting its focus to its more even-keeled cast members. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do that nearly enough to balance out his overly brash energy.

Ellen Barkin and Pierce Brosnan have a pretty good pedigree but seem lost here. Nina Dobrev looks gorgeous in every frame, but her role is more or less an extended cameo. Her character doesn’t have the screen time that a leading lady deserves. She is just barely there. She doesn’t even have that many dialogues so to make it worth it for her to be in the film.

Among the film’s few saving graces are Richard Kind and Julie Hagerty who shine as the gloriously unfiltered parents, and Michael Rooker who brings in a very surprisingly funny act.

Poorna Jagannathan is also funny as the sexually aggressive villain. Lil Rel Howery, Laci Mosley and Blake Anderson are wasted. Lauren Lapkus and Jackie Sandler (Adam Sandler’s wife) also appear in small but hilarious cameos. On the whole, ‘The Out-Laws‘ is a mildly amusing comedy let down by its sloppy script and over reliance on Adam DeVine‘s performance.