Outside the Wire is one of those Netflix action movies that seem promising at the first glance, but end up underperforming despite having good elements. Described by some reviewers as a cross between Terminator and Training Day, it takes place in the near future, where the US military has taken an active role in a conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
During one firefight, drone operator Lieutenant Harp (Damson Idris) disobeys a direct order and performs a drone strike that saves thirty-eight soldiers but kills two of them. He is reassigned to the war zone under the command of Captain Leo (Anthony Mackie), who takes him on a trip to deliver vaccines. The vaccines are only a cover story, however, and soon Harp finds himself wondering what Leo’s endgame is. HIs explanations change every ten minutes, and he appears to be playing everyone else for his own motives. Of course, Leo is also a top-classified military android, although he is distinctly more emotional and human-like compared to the cold Harp.
Outside the Wire plays with a lot of clichés, but to its credit, it handles them effectively. This is hardly the first movie to suggest that war is bad, but the novelty of having an android quip about it while a human soldier struggles to keep up keeps things fresh. The dichotomy of emotions over cold logic is initially addressed but ultimately dropped by the end of the film. One of the other main narrative points is about Harp coming face to face with the carnage wrought about by detached drone pilots, but it also fizzles out by the climax, which devolves into a generic race against time to prevent nuclear armageddon.
Anthony Mackie clearly had fun playing the quippy Leo, and it shows. He is the strong point of this film, followed by Damson Idris’ constantly bewildered Harp.
Although the action is frantically shot, there are good moments that allow for Leo’s super-soldier prowess to come into the spotlight. He is believable as a fighting machine, sleek and efficient, but not as overpowered as someone like, for instance, Captain America. Pilou Asbæk’s Victor Koval, on the other hand, has all the narrative weight of a bad Call of Duty antagonist.
Outside the Wire is perfectly fine for one-time viewing during a lazy weekend. It’s competent enough and well-paced enough to keep you following through till the end, but it lacks the care and forethought needed to flesh out its interesting elements enough to become more than the sum of its parts. Hailing from the producer of Extraction and The Old Guard, it fails to measure up to either of those films, joining the ranks of other undercooked sci-fi films that raise interesting questions but never answer them. At the very least, it’s not terrible, but that’s a low standard to hold sci-fi films to.