Apple TV’s “Outcome” is a dark comedy that centers on Reef Hawk (Keanu Reeves), a beloved Hollywood star who must dive into the depths of his hidden demons after he is extorted with a mysterious video that’s sure to shatter his image and end his career. With the support of his lifelong besties Kyle (Cameron Diaz) and Xander (Matt Bomer), along with his crisis lawyer Ira (Jonah Hill), Reef embarks on a soul-searching journey to make amends with anyone he could have possibly wronged in hopes of identifying the blackmailer. Co-writer and director Hill looks to bring a unique lens to Reef’s wild but spiritually cleansing, nostalgic, and eye-opening trip down memory lane, where confronting his past might be the only way to rescue his future.
Brandon Yu for The New York Times:
In “Outcome,” Keanu Reeves plays a washed-up movie star who has been a noxious narcissist and addict — in private. For years, his team has been protecting his public persona as the nicest guy in Hollywood.
But the second part mostly feels like a limply added asterisk, as if the film, directed by Jonah Hill, realized halfway through that it had to explain its miscast of Reeves as a notorious jerk. That’s a big enough misfire, but it’s just the first in “Outcome,” a film that is shot like a fever dream and written like a puckish remake of “Jay Kelly.”
Reeves isn’t able to rise above the material, but he’s not really given much to begin with; most of the film consists of its eclectic cast (Cameron Diaz as the best friend; Martin Scorsese as the former manager) talking at Reeves while he sits in dejected silence until he finally lashes out in a stilted, histrionic fit. The most extreme case is Hill, who plays Reef’s crisis lawyer, and seems to be doing a misguided twist on Tom Cruise’s demented executive in “Tropic Thunder.”
“Outcome” is an altogether bizarre turn from Hill as a director: His previous films (“Mid90s,” “Stutz”) were, even amid some stylistic cribbing, clearly borne out of a personal, considered worldview. Here he’s made a slapdash satire of modern celebrity culture that is awkward where it wants to be acerbic and clumsily maudlin where it wants to be meaningful.
MacDailyNews Take: The outcome was poor. The film currently has a 2.2 out of 5 audience rating (32% Popcornmeter) and a weak 27% Tomatometer rating (critics) on Rotten Tomatoes.
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The writer, evidently, thought if someone just said “F” a ton, really fast in rants or panics or however they would rant with it – that was somehow “FFFFF Funny.” It wasn’t. It was really bad. It wasn’t enjoyable to be berated into my brain the word – I imagine it would have been at least 200 times if I chose to go back and count…. And yes, horribly done. Waste of complete time.
After about 20 minutes my wife and I quit watching and turned to something quite dumb, but fun-loving stupid and watchable for being what it was Family Plan 2. Post Christmas, whatever, it’s just silly, shut the brain off and enjoy. Nothing special, just is what it was.
I went back later and FF’d Outcome catching 2 minutes here, 2 minutes there, seeing what the mystery was behind the video – which was again gross, stupid and Jr. High – no… it wasn’t Jr. High, it was just all really bad.
To wast Keano with this utter crap is a true shame. Tim Cook should have watched about 10 minutes of this and said “THAT crap is not going on F-ing Apple TV!” That would have been apropos.
I had low expectations going in and the movie exceeded my expectations. 🤷♂️