Review: Out of Death

Jaime King is hiking in the woods to spread her beloved father’s ashes when she is witness to a drug deal involving corrupt cop Lala Kent that turns fatal. She also films the incident on her phone. When King’s presence is uncovered, Kent calls her fellow corrupt cops (including Tyler Jon Olson and Michael Sirow as the corrupt sheriff with political ambitions) and they look to clean up the mess. Bruce Willis turns up as a retired cop and recent widower spending time with his niece before stumbling upon the situation and having to do some quick thinking.

 

This 2021 film from co-directors Mike Burns (a music supervisor in his first feature film directing gig) Al Imran Niloy (director of nothing you’ve likely heard of) and their screenwriter Bill Lawrence (the supposedly upcoming Willis film “The Wrong Place”) is the one that has been cited most often in recent articles about Bruce Willis’ health/retirement. The news of Willis’ aphasia diagnosis really puts things in proper context, and I’ll no longer view his direct-to-DVD era of films as the work of a man who doesn’t give a shit. He very much gives a shit about providing for his family as long as his health permitted it. It’s admirable. I also don’t really blame the directors of these films who likely didn’t know anything until Willis showed up on set. I don’t think this is quite an Edward D. Wood-Bela Lugosi thing here. However, there are certain other individuals with responsibility/fault here and they know who they are, and I hope they feel shame. Anyway, that’s that. On to the review itself.

 

As much as this is the film that’s been getting a little bit of bad press, I have to say having watched it that it’s a typical Willis film of this period, and not particularly one of the worst. Title-wise it sounds like a Steven Seagal film, don’t you think? However it’s a perfectly mediocre film with nice scenery and Jaime King is actually quite good in the lead. I was far less impressed with the rest of the cast, especially the villains played by Michael Sirow and Lala Kent. Kent is completely out of her depth as a corrupt cop, whilst Sirow is simply miscast and unthreatening as the crooked sheriff. He has zero menace and no idea how to do a Southern accent. It’s obvious that the Bruce Willis we’re getting here isn’t the same Bruce Willis from even 10-15 years ago. Now we know the reason why and it’s frankly really hard to watch. Physically he seems fine enough, but performance-wise he comes off like a rank amateur, someone completely un-Bruce Willis. He smiles a lot more here than in any film I’ve ever seen him in and I’m not entirely sure it’s character-related so much as I don’t know if Willis was entirely in the moment at all times. I could be reading too much into that, but I couldn’t help but feel bad for the poor guy here.

 

The plot is fine for what it is, the direction isn’t bad, and the cinematography is really nice. So this isn’t Willis’ worst film pre or during his direct-to-DVD period. If you’ve enjoyed the majority of his output of late – and I imagine there’s gotta be some of you out there – you’ll likely feel the same here, albeit perhaps with a pang of sadness relating to the man’s health. I found it hard to watch for that reason, the film itself is forgettable, but not awful. Yeah, that’s what I’m going with.

 

Rating: C