Domo arigato, 3.5 Mr. Robotos.
BQB here with a review of the Netflix film, “The Outsider.”
3.5 readers, if it’s one thing that the Yakuza are known for it’s open-ness. The Japanese mafia really like newcomers who change things up…not.
Jared Leto plays Nick Lowell, an AWOL US GI in 1954. At the start of our tale, he’s in a Japanese prison. He performs a favor for one Yakuza member and that favor is returned with a grant of his freedom. Oddly, the Yakuza boss’ son welcomes Nick as an equal right away and after awhile, he manages to turn various Yakuza members from thinking he’s a dirty foreigner to deciding he’s just one of the guys.
Honestly, it would be a nice tale about tolerance, diversity, and acceptance if so many people weren’t being shot and murdered and so on.
Overall, a good film, very dark, could have used more info on Nick’s backstory and I feel like there should have been more karate but maybe that’s a stereotype on my part. Do all Yakuza know karate? Is it more offensive to the Yakuza to say they all know karate or that they all don’t know karate? Which is it? I don’t want to offend the Yakuza.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy.
Bookshelf Battle 