Outlaw (18)

Mar 9 2007 By Graham Young, Birmingham Mail

WRITER-director Nick Love's films Football Factory and The Business have brought an uncompromising level of violence to British cinema.

And it's the same again for this deliberately-provocative movie which can be viscerally seductive and brutally antagonising in the same scene.

Regular star Danny Dyer (Gene) returns, but Love uses a different film-making team to move on technically.

On screen, Sean Bean is the main draw as Bryant, a paratrooper back from Iraq.

Failing to recognise the country he left behind, he becomes willing to help the disaffected by replacing the increasingly weak arm of the law.

I lost count of the number of dreaded C-words after reaching eight and the road rage scenes are so reprehensible you wonder how they might influence the behaviour of some immature people in real life.

But a barrister seeking revenge and Bob Hoskins adding a Departed-style mole-like element add interesting dimensions to the 105-minute plot.

This is a dangerously-manipulative movie which might magnify some people's knee-jerk reactions to the justice system.

Let's hope that life doesn't end up imitating 'art'.