Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

GarnettTeenage The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Rich Wright Guess what... I never took History in school. It was not through lack of want, believe me. So it was only during this World Cup I discovered( From the commentators, no less ) that GASP Algeria used to belong to France. And now, I find myself watching a film about that very struggle, for them be an independent nation. Coincidence, no?Encompassing about 40 years, Outside The Law centres around One Algerian family as they are forced to give up their lands and move into skid row. There are three brothers, and as they grow up we see them take on very different fates: One becomes a soldier, the other a revolutionary while inside prison, and the last sibling joins the criminal underworld. Eventually, all their paths will collide in the dramatic (and long running) saga of Algeria's eventually successful quest to govern itself. Will Scotland follow suit? Don't hold your breathe.A wise man once told me: "There is no good film that is too long, and no bad film that is too short". Never a truer word spoken in this case. as it clocks in at just over two hours... yet I was enraptured till the (very bitter) end. The twist-laden plot takes us from one well directed set piece to another, as bullets fly like confetti and bodies are strewn around without mercy. But despite all this chaos, it still has the time for quieter reflective passages which are just as effective. In fact, maybe even more so. It all combines to create a jewel of a movie. Fantastic.Oh and if there are historic inaccuracies in this script (Which I'm sure there will be) I'm not going to mark it down for that. I'm a critic, not a teacher. Mind you, considering how clueless most of the educators I've met seem to be, maybe that's just as well... 8/10

kosmasp It is tough to show both sides of the same medallion, but the movie tries to do just that. It's true that there is a predictability to it, but the characters portrayed by really good french actors give it their best and the movie is worth watching. It is of course handled as mixture drama/thriller to attract a bigger audience, but that does not have to be a bad thing.I personally liked the Grey area kind of handling/treatment the story received, but I can see why some felt it wasn't rooting for one side or didn't engage the viewer with more involvement in the story. But the characters all act naturally and upon their instinct(s). Of course some things are convenient and to get more information on the background you might need to do further research (and/or look at the deleted scenes of the movie), but that is true of many "historical" (or "based on") movies!

Thomas Aitken There's no doubting that this is a well made film with some top acting talent, however there are two elements to the storytelling the let it down massively in my humble opinion.1. It doesn't seem to know exactly what it's central theme/message is.Initially the film presents a very unbiased picture of the evils committed by both sides of this particular struggle, and it also shows quite clearly how the actions of the brothers and the FLN movement moved into violent injustice and terrorism when it suited them to do so.Basically the film starts by presenting a clear warning about the dangers of political ideology, and the fact that using violence and terrorism is never a good or fruitful thing to do, but then this message starts to get lost when, by the end of the film, it almost appears as if all the violent injustice was justified by the outcome of Algerian liberation (the end justifies the means).I'm not sure the director intended this, it's just the way it can be read by the structuring of the film.2. It didn't quite know whether it was a character exploration, or an historical expositionThe films starts by establishing the three brothers as the central characters, but then quickly moves into a series of FLN related terrorist activities, and the police response to these, before finishing up focusing briefly on the brothers again at the end.To me this was a real shame, because I think that what this film never really gave us was any sense of the interior motivations and struggles of the three brothers - and this made them look like little more than mindless thugs willing to kill and maim for their ideology without the usual interior human ethical conflict - basically they come across like psychopaths at times during this film. In fact, in places it even has you rooting for the other side and almost feeling that they were justified in the atrocities they perpetrated in response to the FLN.As a result of this lack of character exploration after the first 30 minutes or so later scenes of a character-focused nature seem a little bit contrived and out of place, like the scene with the two brothers sitting on the bus listening to American 50's rock and disagreeing about its musical quality - if more focus had been given to the characters themselves earlier on, then this scene would have made a lot more sense, and we would have been far more connected to it as an audience, but instead it just came across as odd, like a very hollow attempt at instilling some sort of sense of normalcy and humanity.This film is well made, but unfortunately these two storytelling failings take all the gloss of what could have been a 10/10 production.

Matthew Stechel Caught this tonight its last night seemingly in theaters here...Simply put the film doesn't quite work the way it should. After a seemingly sure footed beginning, the film falls off a cliff offering scene after scene repeating the same thing as characters plot whom to kill and how to kill them in order to advance their agenda. The characters end up as one dimensional stick figures after a handful of scenes in the beginning establishing their take on the Algerian fight for independence, and after a while the film takes on a seemingly more and more outlandish (and at times almost comedic) Ma Barker and her outlaw sons like feel to it...("oh those boys of mine!") as the mother seems to be completely fine with the increasingly violent activities her sons quickly become consumed with. That's not to say the film doesn't have some beautifully filmed sequences tho-- the one at the end definitely packs a punch, but its not enough to save the whole film.Film didn't start out without interest---as its starting, you witness the difficulties facing the three grown sons of this woman in Algeria--the film is book marked by two real and spectacular bloody events from Algeria's fight for independence used here as the turning points for the three son's awakening to social injustice. After the bloody events of the beginning the film follows the three sons as they're all in different places...one's in jail and experiences a political awakening as a radical Algerian who dreams of taking the fight for freedom back to the streets once he's out, one's in the army and having some problems with the killing that he's doing becoming more and more desensitized, and one moves with his mother to try and start a new life in France and dreams of making money and eventually opening up his own nightclub...eventually the son in jail and the one in the army rejoin their family...and that's where the film's story really kicks into gear as the radical son and the army son join (and really kick-start) the FLA (freedom & liberation of Algeria) organization which from my viewing of the film and nothing else seems to consist of scene after scene of the radical son deciding whom to kill next in the name of his cause. The recruiting of the other two brothers and sticking together as a family to the cause seems to be important at first to the radical brother but quickly breaks with that idea once its established that the son who just wants to make some money has no interest in taking up arms against his new country--least he jeopardize any moneymaking attempts (he got a gig as a boxing promoter--grooming this young up and coming boxer for fame and fortune which figures into the plot later on when it comes about that the now terrorist organization will kill him should he fight in the name of France and not for his true Algerian homeland as he should) Film tries to build some tension from the contrasting beliefs of the two brothers (the third one--the army one after some initial hesitation seems to take to the killing in the name of freedom just fine and thus a once promising character conflict gets pushed to the back burner.) and indeed the fact that the film isn't a complete misfire is attributed to the suspense generated by putting the two brothers in this conflict with one another. One of the most memorable scenes has the radical brother telling the army brother that the time has come to kill their brother in the name of their cause, to which the army brother firmly puts his foot down...a fact that the radical will be thankful for after events unravel in the last half hour of the film. Indeed the climatic sequences where the two of them end up being bound together by their circumstances are not only well staged but so filled with the dramatic tension that was completely lacking in the rest of the film that you wonder why the director didn't cut to the chase with these two brothers sooner leading to what is undeniably a beautifully staged and fully realized all out riot in a train station, but its almost too little too late in terms of interest in the storyline.The idea of an Algerian Once Upon A Time In America (immigrant brothers starting up their own various criminal enterprises coming into conflict with one another) is a good one. I very much liked the way the director tried to create this whole saga around these still potent real world historical events, but i wish the characters (and the film itself) had more to offer then simply boiling down to brotherly love vs personal political beliefs. The film just doesn't sustain your interest in its plot line for its entire running time...lets just say it could've taken a lesson or two from MESSRINE---that film might of been twice as long, but it held your interest twice as much thru its runtime at the very least.