Outcast begins in the midst of the Crusades, with Jacob (Hayden Christiensen) leading a charge into a city. His mentor Gallain (Nicolas Cage) urges him to just abandon his mission and head East instead for the sake of the civilians in the city. Jacob doesn’t heed his advice, and ends up doing stuff he regrets. The film then cuts to the Imperial court in China, where the emperor is telling his son Qiang (Lixin Zhao) that he is to inherit the throne instead of his warrior older brother Shing (Andy On). Shing kills his father in rage, and pins the crime on Qiang. Qiang and his sister Lian (Liu Yifei) go on the run, and find some unlikely help in a drug-addled, repentant Jacob.
It is never entirely clear what the plan is supposed to be. For most of the film, Qiang is trying to get to this one city with the royal seal, but it’s never really made clear how that’s supposed to solve the problem. And when the plot actually does get around to solving the problem, it isn’t entirely clear how things have actually changed. Outcast seems to be a film that never really got past its concept. It is sold entirely on the idea of Western Crusaders in imperial China. The details beyond that are left spotty and incomplete.
The film ends up splitting itself between two journeys. There is the literal journey, where the young prince must get to some place with a valuable MacGuffin. And then there is the journey of redemption for Jacob, which involves him reuniting with his mentor at some point. The first journey is what drives the plot, but it ends up becoming a detour to the second journey. The film bends halfway through, changing the shape of the narrative as Jacob’s story takes the fore. The film is a very good example of bad screenwriting, the narrative constantly changing focus. This story doesn’t drive towards eventual resolution. It stumbles forward, trying to mimic narrative formula without really thinking about what each part means.
And so this all emerges a mess of stray narrative threads. The film provides a hint of romance, because films like these tend to have hints of romance. And so despite sharing little chemistry, Jacob and Lian share an attraction. A fourth character is added to their journey seemingly just to provide that kind of romantic intrigue for Prince Qiang. Jacob is given an opium habit to represent his deep internal struggle. But though it is made out to be a problem, it never really seems to get in the way of things unless it is convenient for the plot.
The production values are moderately high. The film features some nice sets and costumes at the very least. The direction isn’t great, though. The action scenes are a mess of movement, the camera never settling for long enough to give the eye something to focus on. In the lead role, Hayden Christiensen burdens himself with a terrible attempt at a British accent. The best one can say about it is that it’s not as bad as Nicolas Cage’s, which borders on outright parody
Outcast is one of those films where it just feels like nobody was really into the project. The plot is barely written out. The acting is halfhearted at best. The camerawork is all over the place. But they found the money for the project, and the people involved were all very willing to spend it. And so they cobbled together the bits and pieces of a movie, putting some effort in production design to make it like a convincing piece of filmmaking. But it’s an empty shell of a film, with no real love to found in its frames.
My Rating:
