KUALA LUMPUR, April 17 — There is a really funny film somewhere in Keanu Reeves-starring, Apple TV movie, Outcome, trying its best to come out.
Unfortunately the film feels more like a work stuck in arrested development, a pie missing a few ingredients but shoved into an oven anyhow and taken out before the edges get that nice golden crisp.
Not that it’s not watchable.
Like him or hate him, Keanu Reeves makes anything he’s in watchable or the reason to watch it in the first place, or even keep watching despite wanting to give up after the first 20 minutes.
Perhaps that’s why Jonah Hill, who wrote, directed and co-produced Outcome, chose Reeves.
Because if you just read the script or had anyone else play the protagonist, named Reef Hawk (dear reader, I groaned at the level of cringe) you might decide watching a pop tart self-destruct would be more riveting.
You get why Reeves (and Cameron Diaz as well as Matt Bomer) would willingly join the project, though.
The material is stuff they’ve lived.
You see, Mr Reef Hawk, a big movie star, who experienced a brief derailment of his career, before making a successful comeback, is now facing a new scandal that might lead to him being, shock, horror, creampuffs, cancelled.
There is a video of a past indiscretion floating around, with its owner, of course wanting a nice payoff or soon it will be much less discreet.
Almost no one is likeable in this movie.
Reef Hawk is a walking caricature of a famous movie star who takes himself too seriously while having as much self-awareness as a bag of lint.
Then there are his two best friends played by Diaz and Bomer who tag along with him most everywhere while talking about him in a way that makes you wonder — do they actually like him or is this some sadism pact, where they vow to keep each other miserable?
Hill as Hawk’s agent is so slimy, so smarmy, so full of self-interest that every time he appeared onscreen I felt I needed to be rinsed in Dettol.
That’s why I was glad to see Martin Scorcese of all people having a small role in the film.
There is an earnestness in his portrayal that is a nice foil to the general lack of likeability most of the characters in the film share.
No, they’re not evil. They’re just awful.
That’s Hollywood in a nutshell, though. The awfulness is baked in, art churned out on a conveyor belt, with what’s being produced decided not by the ones who made it but by some guy in a suit who last saw a film on a college date.
Add the culture of celebrity to the mix and you suddenly understand why so many people in Hollywood spend time in rehab.
This could have been a good movie what with its cast and the subject matter but in the end, the movie will annoy you less if you go into it trying to solve the mystery of who would try and blackmail a less likeable version of Keanu but played by Keanu.
At least the ending helps soften the edges a little of some of the characters but some part of me wonders if it would have been cheaper and more productive for Jonah HIll to go into therapy instead of making this movie.
Outcome is now screening on Apple TV; watch it for Keanu, stay for Scorcese and resist the urge to bathe in holy water whenever Jonah Hill appears.
