The Out-Laws

One of the most difficult genres in films has to be comedies. There was a time when comedies actually were funny back in the golden days of comedians, and we have plenty of classics between the 70´s, 80´s and even the 90´s. I will be honest and say that i have not seen a lot of comedies from the 60´s simply because i usually have a certain limit of how old some films should be for me to accept them. Either way i can easily find some really funny comedies in the past that you should see for a number of reasons. One legendary director who have made several comedy classics is of course Mel Brooks who probably made the best Western comedy of all time called Blazing Saddles. You can find so many other classics such as Young Frankenstein, Silent Movie, History Of The World Part 1 and many others. But there is one specific comedy that Mel Brooks directed that i can easily return to just because there are so many funny scenes in the 1987 film Spaceballs, a parody of Star Wars basically. If you have seen the Star Wars films from the 70´s you are going to love this comedy. Spaceballs takes place on Planet Spaceball, where incompetent President Skroob ( Mel Brooks ) have squandered all of the planet´s fresh air. President Skroob schemes to steal the atmosphere from the neighboring planet Druidia by forcing its ruler King Roland ( Dick Van Patten ) to give him the code to the sheild surrounding it. Roland´s daughter Princess Vespa ( Daphne Zuniga ) fleeds Druidia in order to avoid an arranged wedding to the narcoleptic Prince Valium ( Jim J. Bullock ). The ship Spaceball One, commanded by Colonel Sandurz ( George Wyner ) and carrying Skroob´s enforcer Dark Helmet ( Rick Moranis ), is dispatched to kinap Princess Vespa and her droid servant Dot Matrix. Spaceballs does not only have a lot of funny characters but the dialogue in this film is really good. Whenever there are crazy things happening director Mel Brooks knows exactly where the dialogue needs to be to work with the plot. So many wonderful actors in here such as Bill Pullman, John Candy, Rick Moranis and even Police Academy legend Michael Winslow. A must see if you want to have a good time. Since i don´t watch a lot of modern comedies these days i decided to give a Netflix film called The Out-Laws a chance since the cast seemed interesting. Produced by legendary comedian Adam Sandler, is The Out-Laws exactly what we need to experience this summer or is this a comedy that has nothing to offer at all?

Owen Browning ( Adam DeVine ) is a young bank manager about to marry Parker McDermott ( Nina Dobrev ), whos estranged parents Billy McDermott ( Pierce Brosnan ) and Lilly McDermott ( Ellen Barkin ) contact her that they will be coming to their wedding. Owen is excited, that he is finally going to meet the parents of his future wife. One night while Owen is not prepared, the McDermott´s show up unexpected at their house to present themselves. To get to know them Owen spend the next day doing different activities with them, while not everything might go as planned. When the bank Owen works for is robbed the day after, he is trying to deal with the trauma while he becomes suspicious. Is it possible that the McDermott´s could be the ones who robbed his bank?

The Out-Laws proves exactly my point on what´s wrong with modern comedies released in modern day. Modern comedies suffer with great comedy actors and most films are very easily forgotten. This is one of the reasons why The Out-Laws will probably not be remembered on Netflix because it feels like we have seen this film so many times before. The story is another one of those bank robbery action comedies that we used to see in the 70´s and 80´s, and even if this film is not a disaster in any way it is very difficult to find any real comedy quality here. We might as well get into the positive about this film. I have to say that Pierce Brosnan as the father in-law Billy does deliver a couple of charming moments. This is in no way any of his better performances i have seen Pierce do in his career, but he have such a charamastic personality that fits well on the big screen no matter what character he plays. Legendary actress Ellen Barkin does not only look great but she will also charm you as well as the wife of Billy. I actually think this film should have been about this couple instead, and with a different twist and this could have been an enjoyable film. Their action scenes are at least ok. There is at least one funny scene where the wedding couple have dinner with each partner´s parents talking about sex orgies where actress Julie Hagerty actually deliver some fun dialogue. Ok so we have to talk about the negative for a while. One of the biggest issues i have outside of the lack of funny moments that this film offers, is the fact that they didn´t really try to make the story of a couple getting married funny at all. There are very few scenes where you will find yourself not laughing much at all as the main character investigate if his future´s wifes parents are the bank robbers, and it almost feels like they just threw in jokes there to see if they would match. If you are making a comedy about a wedding and a heist, try and find different situations that could be really funny instead of just throwing in any idea that comes to mind. Comedian Adam DeVine tries really hard to make a lot of different scenes funny and he just tries too hard. I think it would have been better if he cut down on the over the top acting and actually focused on making his scenes work. Director Tyler Spindel ( who directed the Netflix comedy The Wrong Missy ) doesn´t really do much at all to make The Out-Laws enjoyable for comedy fans. It is almost as if he just made this film thinking that the audience just want another wedding comedy without anything else to say. The Out-Laws may not be the worst action comedy i have ever seen, but it is definetely not as funny as it should be with such a great cast. Skip this one and watch Mel Brooks classic Spaceballs instead and i promise you will have a much more fun movie night.

Rating: DD