In this American remake of Akira Kurosawa’s strange Rashomon we get Mexican outlaws and poor white trash tackling subjects of truth and justice. Now I think it is superbly directed for a film of it’s kind even when it never reaches the disorienting madness of Rashomon.

The elements of the film as they were in the original have nearly been preserved, all of the plot points even the ones I thought they would chicken out on are present faithfully and I think that’s great. When I saw The Magnificent Seven one of the things it did was change and mix some of the characters to make the runtime shorter but because Rashomon is already a short movie it makes the job of screenwriters and producers much easier.

The problem is…the things it does do that are similar to Rashomon don’t really add to The Outrage’s own identity but the things it leaves out makes me feel hollow like an essential part of the story. The temple with it’s ominous atmosphere, the dappled lighting that was so disorienting like you’re entering a whole different world, the woodcutter’s journey in the woods…all of that felt lacking in spirit in The Outrage.

The movie is localized to the west as best as it can, the temple becomes the tavern/railway and such sort but for me it just didn’t work as a great framing setting for the story. They even forgot about the rain before the final retelling!

I mentioned that it is superbly directed and in my opinion, the costumes, the fights and camerawork all look great. Acting wise it came off as a bit forced and silly to me but that is expected in remaking works of this manner.

5/10 It mostly is enjoyable even if just to see how much they changed from Rashomon but my viewing was based on me having watched that movie first and seeing if The Outrage does something cool with it’s new setting. It tries to be a western but most of the time that cowboy/bandit talk just made me laugh