Tom Brady didn’t always throw a touchdown. Tiger Woods missed some putts. Caitlin Clark has hurled up a brick more than few times on her path to greatness.

Moral: Even the GOATs have an occasional off day now and then. 

Outcast (2014) was Nicolas Cage’s off day. We’re going to give him a mulligan because he always entertains us (no matter what). But we can flush this film entirely, and forget it. 

Before we do so we are obliged to delve into a brief summary / review of the film since this is indeed our 68th installment of the WATC(H).

The World According to Gallain, The White Ghost (Pirate)

Nicolas Cage directed a film once. It was awful. In general, people should stick to their swim lanes. Actors act. Directors direct. Producers produce. Don’t cross the stream; you get the idea. Outcast was directed by a stunt man. Yes, you heard me right. Stunts. Probably a very accomplished stuntman, Nick Powell, known for his work in Gladiator. But he’s a stuntman nonetheless–his main job is to make dangerous physical elements in films seem realistic. Stuntmen protect actors from harm. They are pretty badass.

Outcast feels like a movie directed by a stuntman. Sure there’s a lot of action sequences, sword fighting, explosions even, and these are probably the best parts of the film. What’s not great is the plot, the character development, the acting, and (to some extent) the cinematography. 

If I’m not mistaken, this movie ushers in a long period of Video On Demand offerings from Nicolas Cage. While I think this movie did see some time in theaters, by and large the audience was watching this film at home on their DVD players. 

So what was the tepid plot of this movie? Two Christian crusaders from the 12th century, Gallain (Nicolas Cage) and Jacob (Hayden Christensen) are killing people in the Middle East at the behest of their “all knowing God” and the Catholic church. The skeptical elder Gallain grows a conscience and questions what they are doing, and proposes “hey, maybe we shouldn’t be killing people in God’s name”. 

(Sound familiar already? See Season of the Witch). 

The younger, Jacob, is more zealous about continuing to kill for God because he feels he hasn’t lost sight of the vision. He ends up murdering a bunch of women and children in the process.  The two part ways (and years later end up in the Far East.)

Meanwhile, the Far East has its own problems. The emperor is dying and has concerns about his legacy. Should he leave his kingdom to his eldest son, a bloodthirsty and rabid warrior, Prince Shing (Andy On), or should he follow a path to peace in electing his younger son, Prince Zhao as his heir to the throne. He chooses the younger, and to protect him sends Zhao and his older sister Lian (Liyue Zifei) with the official emperor’s seal out of the palace before Shing arrives.

Shing,who controls the Emperor’s army, murders his father and chases after the brother for the seal and his “rightful” place as the heir to the throne.

Zhao and Lian flee to the countryside and enlist the help of the now opium-addicted and disillusioned crusader, Jacob. Although he drags his feet in helping them, ultimately Jacob agrees to help the two avoid the Black Guards (Shing’s posse) and get them to safety in a city some miles away from their current location. 

Lots of chasing, fighting, swordplay, and opium-rehab talk fills in the next hour or so of the movie. Lian is smitten with Jacob, even though he’s the 13th century version of today’s “crackhead”. Jacob eventually finds protection from the Black Guards with a gang of Chinese warriors now being by lead by his old protege Gallain.

Gallain who tried to “go straight” as a merchant fell victim to the constants raids of the Black Guard and now lives in a cave with his wife, and the gang, where he spends his time occasionally killing the raiders (from the shadows), fondling snakes, and drinking a lot of wine from leather wineskins. He’s lost an eye. His long hair is preposterous. And he goes by the alias The White Ghost. And oh yeah, forgot to mention: he talks like a Pirate.

If you’re not bored already you should be. But there is more fighting. Jacob and Gallain have beef because of the whole killing women / children thing. But turns out Jacob didn’t kill them. It was circumstantial evidence. He just happened to come into their chambers “seconds after” they slit their own throats. Gallain feels a little guilty about assuming the worst and Jacob feels bad about killing people in the first place.

Gallain eventually agrees to protect Prince Zhao and Lian from their nasty bro, especially since the Black Guards cut out his wife’s tongue, but he promises her “this is the last killing we ever do”.

And he’s not wrong because during their last stand against the Black Guard (after his wife gets killed protecting him) he gets killed by a bunch of spears going into his chest, arms, and legs. He fought “galliantly”. 

Jacob is left to fight off Prince Shing with swords to protect the kiddos. He takes a bunch of arrows to the leg and chest, but ultimately kills Shing (who kind of accidentally stabs Lian). The army reverts over to Prince Zhao’s leadership, somehow Jacob and Lian survive the knives and the arrows, and the kingdom (conceivably) will be ruled by a peaceful kid who is terrible at archery. 

Sounds awesome…why so terrible?

1. The acting. It’s probably mostly related to the story / script, but the acting is what really throws this movie into the trash pile. Hayden Christensen, as we all know from the Anakin days, is a terrible actor. Sorry, but he always sounds flat and monotone, and for whatever reason the more expressive he tries to be, the less believable he is. He. Talks. Like. A. Slumbering. Robot. I think they tried to hide this with his character’s opium addiction. I am sure the stuntman director had thoughts like, “If we assume he’s bombed out of his mind, no one will notice that every line sounds like he’s reading from a cue card. It will be believable.” But no, it didn’t mask the fact. Cage is overly expressive as the White Ghost teetering from livid to snarky to tender and all ranges in between. He’s kind of the opposite of Christensen–you want to tell him to just “simmer down” a little bit. But you know he won’t! Never surrender.
2. The accents. Both Christensen and Cage voice some pretty terrible British accents throughout. Not good, not consistent, not very British sounding. Cage doesn’t sound like a British knight in the beginning of the movie, and somehow takes on a growly kind of pirate British accent by the end of the movie. I don’t know if this is related to the loss of the “eye” (which he squints through) or the samurai pony tail or what, but the accents are so distracting–they actually make the roles comedic to me.
3. The hair. One reviewer described Cage’s hair in this film by saying he could “pinch-hit for Gene Simmons” of the band KISS. He’s not wrong. Whether it’s ponytail or the braided mane, he just looks kind of ridiculous. Christensen has a weird long mohawk which I am not certain is even a style that would have been worn in 13th century Europe. But OK. 
4. The premise. Two jaded crusaders decide to just up and leave the battle and move to China. Why? Is there any historical basis for this kind of thing happening? And then they bump into each other by chance? C’mon. China is a giant landmass. The emperor of one of the most powerful dynasties in all of China is concerned about too much war? Ok…I’m not buying it. He’s going against the Chinese cultural value placed on that of the firstborn child (son no less!) because…he’s son is too battle tested. Hmmm, nah, that sounds like some serious revisionist history to me. 

Not Enough Cage

To make this film even harder to watch. There’s just not enough CAGE in it. Seriously. He show up in the first ten minutes. Then he peeks in for maybe a minute of the action in the next thirty minutes of the move. Then he is a key figure in the 24 minutes of the movie. That’s roughly maybe 35 minutes of screen time in 90 minute movie. Instead we have to watch painful romance scenes between Jacob and Lian where they talk about his addiction issues and whether or not he’s a good person. Sigh. 

So yeah, I’m ready to flush this one and forget it. The most entertaining parts of the film you’ll intuit by reading through the standard First, Recurrence, and Quotable sections below.

Firsts for Nicolas Cage character as Gallain

• First pirate accent
• First samurai hair style
• First time killed by a bunch of spear strikes
• Crusader turned merchant turned bandit.
• Holding a chicken
• Saved by a woman sacrificing her life for him
• Solo fighting a garrison of soldiers with a long blade

Recurrences

• Playing a disenchanted crusader (Season of the Witch)
• Losing an eye in battle (Drive Angry)
• In love with an Asian who cannot speak (Bangkok Dangerous)
• Teaching a youngun’ about archery (The Weather Man)
• Handling a snake (Joe)
• Losing the love of his life (City of Angels)
• Buried under stone altar with sword as grave marker (Season of the Witch)

Quotables

“COVER!”

“There are women and children in there, Jacob!”

“Haven’t you had enough of this? Killing for hypocrite priests?!?”

“The blood we spill here is on our blades. Our swords. Not God’s.”

“If it was my choice, I would have let you rot.”

“Black guards are as thick as flies on a farting goat’s ass because of you.”

“I should have left you in the woods, for crow meat!”

“I AM. The. WHITE. GHOST, but no one calls me OUTLAW Child. NOT TO MY FACE.”

“Woman, don’t you ever stop!” [Responding to his wife’s stare as she says nothing. She has no tongue.]

“Riddles give me…HEADACHES.” 

“All lands burn, Jacob.”

“To the damned!” [drinks wine] “Each and every one of us.”

“YOU WANT MY BLOOD? YOU WANT MY BLOOD?”

Conclusion

You can’t win ‘em all. I think this film scored something like 4.6 out of 10 on IMDB.com. I’d say that’s maybe too generous. But I don’t imagine the ratings are going to improve very much with the next WATC(H) #69, Left Behind (2014). Boy, oh boy. 

If one Nicolas Cage loses his religion, then another Nicolas Cage finds him one. God bless them, every one!