The Muddled 2014 White Savior Epic Outcast is Quite Poor
Welcome, friends, to the latest entry in Control Nathan Rabin 4.0. It’s the career and site-sustaining column that gives YOU, the kindly, Christ-like, unbelievably sexy Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place patron, an opportunity to choose a movie that I must watch, and then write about, in exchange for a one-time, one hundred dollar pledge to the site’s Patreon account. The price goes down to seventy-five dollars for all subsequent choices.
At the beginning of my career at The A.V. Club I lived in fear that one day I would be assigned to write about a movie or an album or a book and I would have no idea what to do or say. My brain would fail me and I would sit at my computer defeated, not knowing what to write or what to do.
It was, in many ways, an irrational fear. There were certainly some reviews that I felt more confident about than others but that nagging, unsettling fear that I would someday receive an assignment I would be unable to complete was never realized.
As I got older this anxiety abated somewhat but there are still moments when I’ll see someone’s Control Nathan Rabin 4.0 choice and that old fear will pop right back up and I will begin to feel preemptively defeated.
That’s even happened in the Travolta/Cage Project. Many, many months ago we covered The Season of the Witch for the podcast and the column. I found myself underwhelmed and disappointed, which is not terribly unusual for this part of Travolta and Cage’s careers.
What is unusual is that I didn’t write up The Season of the Witch immediately after watching it. I didn’t, ultimately, write about it the day after that, or the subsequent day either. I watched The Season of the Witch and discussed it on a podcast but by the time I FINALLY had time to write it up it had dissipated completely from my memory.
I never did get around to writing up Season of the Witch although if and when I turn The Travolta/Cage Project into the Travolta/Cage book I will have to go back and write it up.
I’ve devoted long, joyous years of my life to exploring the complete filmography of Nicolas Cage, my favorite actor. Yet Season of the Witch left me so cold that writing about it felt like the dreariest of obligations.
The same is true of Cage’s next utterly forgettable action movie set during the Crusades, the 2014 stinker Outcast. I watched Outcast last Friday for my podcast and I am writing it up now, nine days later because otherwise it will join Season of the Witch in the sad little club of Nicolas Cage movies so uninteresting that even a Nicolas Cage obsessive like myself doesn’t find them interesting enough to write about.
Outcast opens during the crusades, with Jacob (Hayden Christensen) attacking Arabs alongside compatriot Gallain (Nicolas Cage). Cage’s performance is, unfortunately, notable primarily for his regrettable hairstyles.
Cage is introduced looking like a medieval version of Ringo Starr. When he reappears MUCH later he resembles Gene Simmons in full costume and make-up, right down to his top knot.
Gallain has become disillusioned with the Crusades. The veteran warrior for Christ has come to suspect that murdering foreigners in the name of Jesus may not be as moral as he initially thought.
This creates a rift between the two men, who part ways. A three year Bratz: The Movie-style time jump later both men have abandoned the Crusades and Jacob has gone West and become an opium addict and mysterious loner.
When his character is re-introduced, Christensen is shot in shadow and silhouette in a way seemingly designed to make us, the audience, wonder just who this badass could possibly be and also how he got so unbelievably badass.
Director Nick Powell, a veteran stuntman with only two directorial credits, both for largely forgotten Nicolas Cage movies, gives Christensen the Sergio Leone Man with No Name treatment. Instead of making the actor seem more iconic and mythic, the way he’s shot only underlines how inadequate and underwhelming Christensen is as a leading man and action hero. Christensen is no Clint Eastwood. More to the point he’s no Nicolas Cage either.
That proves a major problem when the action moves to China and Cage disappears from the film for a solid hour. To put things in The Simpsons terms, Cage is like Homer’s conception of Poochie; whenever Cage is not on screen, all the other characters might as well be asking, "Where's Nicolas Cage?” I know I certainly was!
It sucks in all three dimensions!
Jacob just wants to be left alone to smoke opium and be depressed but he and his incredible archery gifts are pressed into service helping Prince Zhao and Princess Lian (Liu Yifei, who would go on to play Mulan for the 2020 remake) defeat their evil brother, who killed their father the emperor so that he could assume power.
The world-weary warrior loses his cynicism as he defends his righteous new friends against the evil forces of their nefarious sibling. It’s white saviors to the rescue as Jacob’s trusty bow and arrow protect royals marked for death.
Just when it seems like Cage has left the movie forever he reappears in the third act. Time and experience have changed him, however. He’s now a goofy, drunken libertine with an unmistakable pirate vibe.
Cage once again finds a way to amuse himself, and, to a lesser extent, the audience, by devouring copious scenery doing a silly Jack Sparrow routine. Cage at least seems to be enjoying himself, which is more than can be said of Christensen.
Outcast picks up with Cage’s re-appearance but by that point it’s too little, too late. This out and out stinker undoubtedly hurt Cage’s career because it’s forgettable and bad but also because it represents a blatant bait and switch.
This isn’t a Hayden Christensen/Nicolas Cage movie. It’s a Hayden Christensen movie with a supporting performance by Nicolas Cage.
There was a time when the release of a new Nicolas Cage movie was an event. Alas, that time had passed when Outcast hit Redbox and undiscriminating streaming services. Outcast is intensely forgettable but I’m happy I remembered JUST enough about it to get something out of a real nothing of a movie.
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