Outcome - Review

Rating: 3 out of 5

JONAH Hill's latest is a weird but fascinating dark comedy-drama that only partially succeeds, while also feeling incredibly self-indulgent.

A satire of sorts on celebrity and cancel culture, it's a star-studded ensemble that asks some intriguing questions without really delivering a clear message or answer.

Keanu Reeves takes the lead as global film star Reef Hawk, an actor dubbed 'the nicest man in Hollywood', who actually hides a dark secret: he's a bit of an asshole. Under his saintly exterior exists a narcissist who is recovering from heroin addiction.

As he prepares to make a big screen comeback, Hawk is blackmailed by an unknown extortionist who claims to have video of him in a compromising situation. Desperate to maintain his image, Hawk summons his lawyer, Ira Slitz (Hill) to find the culprit, while also embarking on his own quest to find the source by taking legal advice and apologising to everyone he's wronged.

Hence, with support of two long-term friends (Cameron Diaz and Matt Bomer), Hawk visits his mother, the washed-up talent manager who first discovered him as a child (Martin Scorsese) and others he may have wronged to try to put things right before any scandal breaks.

The ensuing film is packed with deliberations on the nature of fame, its effect on those who find it, and what it means to be a human being in a world obsessed with the optics of celebrity, while also throwing in some meta in-jokes, the biggest of which is finding Reeves play on his own off-screen nice guy image to deliver an alternative possibility.

Reeves embraces the challenge and mixes those external niceties with something much darker, neurotic and self-absorbed internally - breaking with his laidback slacker cool to deliver some biting put-downs to anyone who pisses him off (mostly, his loyal BFs). It's good to see Reeves in this type of performance, stretching himself beyond the expected.

Notable, too, is Scorsese, genuinely empathetic as the talent manager who feels the pain of rejection from all those he helped find a pathway into the industry. He may only have a couple of scenes but, if anything, he lends the film its heart and soul, and strikes up a really moving relationship with Reeves.

There's further fun to be found in seeing Drew Barrymore play a ridiculous version of herself, melting down nicely during a TV interview, as well as Diaz reuniting with Reeves to strong effect for the first time since 1996 crime comedy Feeling Minnesota.

Hill, as director and co-writer, ensures that the film lands some decent comedic moments alongside some more dramatic ones, befitting the darker subject material.

But he also can't prevent the film from feeling a little self-indulgent at times too. This is all the more notable given the real-life accusations that have been levelled at the star himself, from a former girlfriend, as well as his decision to include nods (via posters, mainly) to other former superstars felled by the #MeToo movement, such as Kanye West and Kevin Spacey.

The film seems to be arguing, on the one hand, that fame is hard and celebrities can be misunderstood (particularly once the revelation of what Hawk's indiscretion is), while struggling to condemn the actions of those whose background antics go way beyond indiscretion (and into assault and abuse). Hence, Outcome strikes an uneven tone.

Hill, too, feels like he's perhaps in need of an ego check. His lawyer is the showiest role (even though Hill, himself, is largely unrecognisable) and comes with several grandstanding sequences that feel pointless and shallow (perhaps the point of them, but equally indulgent).

Outcome is never less than intriguing and features a number of great performances. But it also feels a little too self-satisfied and confused to really feel satisfying.

Certificate: 15

Running time: 89mins