‘Outcome’ Embodies the Hollywood Inauthenticity That It Seeks To Satirize

What a tired film is Apple TV’s “Outcome.” Directed by Jonah Hill, who co-wrote the script with Ezra Woods, the picture is a Hollywood insider’s attempt at biting the hand that feeds him, but only after the bite has been rendered suitably toothless to not risk industry estrangement. There are few things as off-putting as a rebel whose cause has been rendered moot by the tides of history.Cancel culture hasn’t left us entirely. Lord knows the pointing of fingers is an eternal pursuit. Still, the cancelling of this-or-that individual isn’t as feverish as it was in the bad old days of 2020. Here the victim is Reef Hawk (Keanu Reeves), a much beloved celebrity who is returning to the limelight after having dedicated half a decade to getting sober. Playing a thinly disguised version of himself, Mr. Reeves cuts an appealingly haggard figure. Age suits him.Mr. Hill, along with his behind-the-camera duties, co-stars as Hawk’s attorney, Ira Slitz. His client is on the verge of being extorted: Ira has received information about a video that casts the actor in an unflattering light. Corraling a multi-culti assortment of legal eagles, Slitz is desperate to find a way out for a man who is, according to myriad Google searches, the planet’s least blemished megastar.Keanu Reeves, Cameron Diaz and Matt Bomer in ‘Outcome.’ Apple TVMr. Hill’s performance is showy and an annoyance, he’s more crass than funny. The legal offices of Slitz’s firm are decorated with sizable black-and-white photos of celebrities who are, ostensibly, happy customers — among them, Kanye West, Kevin Spacey, and Bill and Hillary Clinton. If that weren’t obvious enough, Mr. Hill preens and paces, highlighting the shallowness of his character by placing himself firmly above it. When the auteur repeatedly flaunts the word “bubbe,” you have to wonder if a call to the Anti-Defamation League might be advisable.“Outcome” is presumably a comedy, so broadness of character and affect might be considered appropriate to its purposes. But the movie has less in common with the acidic truths of Billy Wilder’s 1950 “Sunset Boulevard” than the self-congratulatory petulance of Noah Baumbach’s recent picture “Jay Kelly.” Bless Mr. Reeves: He soldiers through the story with a seriousness born of satiric and dramatic intent. The rest of the cast succeed in thwarting his efforts by nodding, winking, and otherwise pimping their celebrity. Such a crowded red carpet, this thing.Cameos are aplenty. CNN commentator Van Jones is on hand as an obsequious talk show host, soap opera veteran Susan Lucci plays Hawk’s avaricious mother, and actress-turned-daytime-diva, Drew Barrymore, camps it up as, what else, Drew Barrymore. Director Martin Scorsese appears as Richie “Red” Rodriguez, an agent who represents child actors and whose office is a booth in a local bowling alley. Mr. Scorsese does all right in the role, but he’s upstaged by cinematographer Benoît Debie, who festoons the proceedings in a synthetic wash of color that brings to mind the super-saturated paintings of Maxfield Parrish. The candied palette is a distraction.Then again, Hollywood is a kind of Never Never Land, and would that Mr. Hill possessed the vivacity and wit of 1952’s “Singin’ in the Rain,” a picture in which Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly poked fun at a milieu they knew well and held dear. “Outcome,” in contrast, is a Mobius strip of glib affectations, an inauthentic meditation on inauthenticity. A brief moment of life is provided in the film’s opening moments. A clip from a 1982 episode of “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” features a 5-year old Joey Lawrence singing, dancing and otherwise giving his all in the grand cause of showbiz schmaltz. Would that “Outcome” possessed that kind of integrity.

‘Outcome’ Embodies the Hollywood Inauthenticity That It Seeks To Satirize

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