‘I'm talking about legitimate targets. I'm talking about people that hurt you. I'm talking about fucking violence.’ Bryant (Sean Bean)

The above quote sums up everything you need to know about Nick Love’s fourth feature film. It’s a pumped up violent sweary revenge-based blood fest with a message. A film about a society falling apart, swollen by fear and violence, and a crusade being fought, up front and personal, with the same cruel methods that caused it. It’s not an easy Sunday afternoon watch. It’s more of a late night let’s-put-this-on-and-laugh-and-then-realise-how-bloody-dark-it-is kinda thing. It’s like Death Wish but with loads more people and far more methods of execution than one should remember. Outlaw also features one of the finest casts known to British film. The first three are legends; Sean Bean, Bob Hoskins and Danny Dyer. We all know Bean from his amazing ability to shout "BASTARDS" in everything he does, we all know Hoskins from The Long Good Friday and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and of course Dyer is just bloody brilliant. The supporting cast, featuring Sean Harris (Brothers of the Head, Ashes To Ashes), Lennie James (Snatch, The State Within) and Rupert Friend (Shagging Keira Knightley) are all quite marvellous in their respective roles.

The story is quite simple. Bryant (Bean) returns from Iraq after a career as a paratrooper, he is disillusioned by what has become of the country he has been fighting for and a meeting with a slightly nutty security guard called Simon (Harris) convinces him that something needs to be done about it. Gene (Dyer) is an office worker, about to get married who has bad dreams about being beaten up by yobs. These dreams become reality when a minor car crash causes him to get his head kicked in. He, too, wants to do something about it. As does lawyer Cedric (James) whose wife and unborn child are murdered by the gang he is prosecuting. Bryant also convinces his old commanding officer’s son, Sandy (Friend), to help him. Sandy was nearly killed by a gang of angry young men. They have meetings, they form a gang and violence commences with info fed to them by straight-down-the-line old copper Lewis (Hoskins). There are plenty of twists and turns on the way and of course plenty of violence. I’m telling you Passion Of The Christ has nothing on this mother. And what’s more you get the trademark Nick Love ‘head kicked in’ sound whenever a violent move connects with bone. And like every Nick Love film, Danny Dyer is indestrutable. He runs through bloody machine gun fire! If ever they make a live-action film of Captain Scarlet, they should go straight to him.

The characters are interesting. Bryant is a hardened soldier; angry, tough but essentially moralistic. Gene wants an easy life, he's frightened but he knows he’s losing it in the society he lives in. Cedric and Sandy are the most reluctant of them all; Cedric only shocked into action by the death of his family, Sandy persuaded by his mentor Bryant. Simon is an old friend of Gene’s, psychotic, looking for a cause to cover his own brand of immoral violence. And Lewis is the cop heading for retirement and hidden away by his younger corrupt superiors. He wants to fight back against the dirty system he’s stuck in and sees the Outlaws as the perfect method.

For Love, this is a transition movie. An attempt to to be more serious after the almost comedic, less serious gang capers of The Football Factory and The Business. It’s more Goodbye Charlie Bright than anything. If you’re looking for fight-based entertainment all the way through, you will be surprised; it takes awhile to build and this may irritate some. It’s bleak; the story never looks like it will be solved. They are fighting against mass crime and they can’t take everyone on, so this is no glorious charge into the valley of death. It’s dark, very dark at times, not what you would expect from Love. Death follows death; violence follows violence in a seemingly never-ending cycle. You have to consider that Love for the first time has been presented with some real acting heavyweights in Sean Bean and Bob Hoskins. A lot of the usual suspects (Tamar Hassan, Ronald Manookian etc) are missing, replaced with trained thesps. It’s not to say Hassan and Manookian are crap but it gives the film a more serious edge; it’s Love attempting to grow up and present something a bit more thought-provoking.

The subject matter itself is indeed topical. With the country going down the shitter by the minute, Love knows what Middle England is thinking. In fact, many of the events in the film were based on real-life events Love saw in newspapers and on TV. Middle England is raging against the ever-rising tide of crime, committed by people who lack all morals and are beyond all reach by a police force restricted by a non-committal government. It is Love who takes the idea of ‘fighting back’ to the extreme. Watching the film, you do get the sense that we are not far away from an Outlaw-type crusade; think Tony Martin shooting burglars, people confronting kids in their streets. How long before someone thinks of organizing their mates into a gang and fighting for their families and their towns? In that sense, Outlaw is visionary, it sees into the possibilities of the future and it looks like the Wild West.

Outlaw will be reviled by the critics for its lack of arty direction and excessive violence but the film is gritty and true. Wonderfully directed, brilliantly acted and a warning to the powers that be, that the good people of this country could be about to kick off big time. Essential viewing.