Reviews, it’s fair to say, have been far from kind.
With a back catalogue that includes the likes of Dallas Buyers Club, Fight Club and Blade Runner 2049, the inclusion of Jared Leto in the cast of any movie is usually cause for film fans to sit up and take notice.
On Friday, his latest flick The Outsider, a Netflix Original, will be available on the streaming service, although if first impressions are anything to go by, it is more likely to be up for Razzies than Oscars when the awards season comes around next year.
Co-starring the likes of Rory Cochrane and Emile Hirsch, The Outsider tells the story of an American soldier (Leto), whose escape from prison is aided by his Yakuza cellmate.
As a debt of gratitude, the American soldier enters the dark world of the yakuza and adopts their way of life, becoming ingrained in a criminal underworld in the process.
On the face of it, that doesn’t sound all bad, but the early reviews have been damning to say the least.
“The generic Jared Leto Yakuza thriller no one wanted” says the AV Club of the movie, while The Daily Beast went one better and described it as a “culturally insensitive disaster”.
The Guardian were a little kinder when calling it a “crass Netflix thriller” but still gave it a 1/5 review, while the top line on a review on IGN says: “Jared Leto joins the Yakuza. If you thought that would be interesting, you thought wrong.”
The views of critics aren’t always to be taken as gospel, of course, so you can judge for yourself by giving it a go when it arrives on Netflix on Friday, but we’re certainly not getting our hopes up.
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
