Back to doing what the man arguably does
best, we have famed Japanese director Takeshi Kitano guiding
violence and mayhem in a gangster picture with 'Outrage', and
it's good to see the director in comfortable surroundings once
again. For the record, there is not a lot that this
director has created that I haven't found at least some
enjoyment in, with his offbeat style and methodical pacing,
and his hyper violent 'Outrage' does provide a good amount of
enjoyment, but if there's anything else underneath the
violence and back stabbing, say like a message about some sort
of far reaching social issue, I didn't get that part.
The first thing we have to figure out, as we sit down to watch
'Outrage', is the Yakuza hierarchal structure. At the
top we have The Chairman (Kitamura Soichiro) who wears warm up
suits all the time. Apparently Yakuza chairmen all wear
warm up suits while every single one of their underlings
sports business suits. The luxury of being the chairman
I guess. The Chairman is a horrible person, but he comes
off as a nice guy to most of his underling since he passes off
all of his dirty work to his no. 2, Kato (Miura
Tomakzu). You would think being essentially the vice
president of a major business enterprise would be a good
thing, but the Chairman mercilessly abuses poor Kato, and
whenever anything doesn't go exactly to the Chairman's plan,
Kato is the one that gets a slap upside the head.
Under Kato we have our bosses, and today's boss of concern is
Ikemoto (Kunimura Jun) who has been instructed that one his
good friends, a boss in another Yakuza mob, is causing some
trouble and needs to be dealt with. Thus Ikemoto
dispatches his underboss Otomo (Takeshi) to deal with this
problem.
Here is where 'Outrage' gets… I don't
want to say complicated… but maybe bogged down / convoluted /
immersed in Yakuza dealings, depending on your point of
view. Every character in this movie seems to have some
kind of plan or ulterior motive to whatever they do.
There's a
dirty cop in our midst (Fumiyo Kohinata) and
he might be the best representation of this movie as I'm not
completely sure who he works for since he appears to have his
hands in everything and takes orders from everybody, but
ultimately I guess he works for himself. Our man Otomo
begins by dutifully following the orders of his boss Ikemoto…
then figures out that maybe following Ikemoto's orders isn't
the best way to go. Otomo has his own crew who he dishes
out orders to, and while his no. 1 Mizuno (Kippe Shina) looks
to be loyal to a fault, if not a little off his rocker, his
no. 2 Ishihiara (Ryo Kase) with his youth, expensive suits,
and amber sunglasses doesn't look like anybody I would turn my
back on for one red second. Back at the main office the
Chairman is steadily lying to people then dispatching the
besieged Kato to carry out what he really wants done, and
everybody is steady conspiring against everybody else… Bullets
to the back of the head, bullets to the face, mass shootings,
dismemberments, butcher knives, machetes, explosions, chop
sticks and decapitations will all follow.
I believe my first introduction to the films of Takeshi Kitano
was his American film 'Brother' which I thought was pretty
amazing at the time in its realistic presentation of violence
and how brutal it was, and thus I became a fan and started
tracking down all of the man's films. In hindsight
'Brother' might be one of his weaker films… but at the time…
that being said, the style that is Kitano was there, and it is
here in bold display. Numerous characters, double
dealings, various characters committing to actions without
considering the consequences of these actions, the sudden,
shocking, matter of fact style of violence, the muted tones,
humor so dark that there will be times you cannot see it, and
a conclusion… no matter from how you choose to approach it…
that you know cannot end well. This is a Kitano film,
and it is a good one.
But it is not a great one, at least in my opinion. As I
mentioned earlier, while I don't think the narrative is ever
confusing, but it is convoluted. And is there even
really narrative, at least in the sense of a beginning, middle
and end? This could be up for debate because it's not
like any of these characters are progressing towards any
particular goal, at least not our main character who just
follows orders until he gets tired of following orders and
then allows the chips to fall where they may. Other
characters might have goals, those being stabbing people in
the back to achieve a higher position until it's their time to
get stabbed in the back, which did get me to thinking how can
anybody in this business trust anyone? We have the
illusion that the Yakuza is an honor based organization, but
this movie informs us that it is anything but.
So I guess my question to the director, if I were privileged
to have an audience with him, would be 'what was the
point? What are you trying to tell me?' Maybe
there isn't one. It's just a visual, visceral,
phenomenally well-acted demonstration of a week in the life of
a criminal family when everything hits the fan. At the
end of the day I think I can say that this was enough, though
I can't help but feel that there should be more, and if there
is more, I'm disappointed in myself that I didn't see it.
