By my sights Apple TV has given Jonah Hill‘s Outcome, a totally original, phenomenal, way-ahead-of-the-curve black comedy by way of Herman Hesse‘s “Siddhartha“, the bum’s rush.
The Apple marketing team obviously doesn’t believe in it, no promotion to speak of, no advance build-up…oh, ye of little faith! And they couldn’t be more wrong.
An 84-minute industry-centric journey of self-discovery with wickedly funny segments here and there, Outcome is about a 50-something Hollywood superstar and former heroin addict named Reef Hawk (Keanu Reeves, giving a truly in-there, scaldingly honest, low-key performance for the ages) trying to apologize his way out of a potential career scandal.
Things begin with Hawk’s crisis attorney Ira Slitz (Hill) announcing that an extortionist is looking to destroy Hawk’s rep with some kind of weird sex tape or something. The tape will go online unless the angry whomever is paid $15 million in exchange for going away and destroying all copies.
Slitz urges Hawk to contact everyone he’s ever known who might hate or strongly resent him and apologize, 12-steps-style, for whatever harm or pain he might have brought into their lives.
And so Hawk, who is occasionally capable of behaving like an egoistic asshole but who isn’t that bad if you step back and cut him a little slack, begins the apology tour with visits to (a) a former manager-agent (Martin Scorsese‘s Richie “Red” Rodriguez, now running a bowling alley), (b) a resentful ex-girlfriend (Welker White), (c) his mother Dinah (Susan Lucci) who’s now starring in a reality series, and, most importantly, (d) his two best friends going all the way back to childhood — Cameron Diaz‘s Kyle and Matt Bomer‘s Xander.
Apple’s URL announces that Outcome is a “comedy”…wrong! It couldn’t be less about hah-hah, have-a-giggly-good-time doofus humor…it’s about digging into the past and admitting shortcomings and trying to break though to the simple, elemental truth of things. Obviously not a premise for a “comedy”, but Apple marketers aren’t smart enough to grasp that.
All I can say is that I watched Outcome last night starting around 12:15 am, and I started audibly cackling and chuckling right away, and I don’t do that as a rule. (I’m an LQTM-er, for the most part.)
Quick message to Jonah Hill, sent at 2:15 am or thereabouts:
“I just finished watching it, bruh. I LOVED the Siddhartha-level humor. I was laughing my ass off at first, and then it shifts into a sadder, more earnest or melancholy vein and I loved that you didn’t feel obliged to keep the humor ball in the air.
“Fuck those stupid dumbass critics saying that it’s not funny enough.”
HE To critics: “It’s not a tee-hee-hee comedy, jerkweeds!…it’s a satirical examination of a kind of malignancy of the Malibu soul…a subdued, darkly amusing thing about a form of online cancer that we’re all dealing with today. But it’s also really funny when it wants to be.”
Outcome was brilliantly written by Hill and Ezra Woods, and the handsome, fairy-tale-ish, CG-infused cinematography is by Benoit Debie.
Diaz has been absent for years but her skills are undiminished, and she looks great, by the way. She’s now 53…52 when Outcome was filmed.
Two wonderfully hilarious cameos from Van Jones and Drew Barrymore.
