On the Outs

Name: On the Outs
Genre: Drama
Released: July 13, 2005
Duration: 86 min
Rating: 66

2005

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 14 Critic Reviews

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Mixed or average reviews based on 4 Ratings

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On The Outs

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Movie Details & Credits

Kindred Media Group | Release Date: July 13, 2005 | R

Summary: A dramatic narrative feature based upon the real stories of girls from the streets and juvenile jail, who lent their voices and unique stories to the filmmakers. These are girls who struggle with all the highs and lows of teenage life in an inner-city world that makes its own rules. (Fader Films)

Director: Lori Silverbush and Michael Skolnik

Genre(s): Drama

Rating: R

Runtime: 86 min

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Critic Reviews

Owen Gleiberman

On the Outs parses the hopes and terrors of blasted lives with an empathy that never cheapens into pity. The movie wounds as much as it heals, and that's its true power. Read full review

Elizabeth Weitzman

What makes the film feel genuine, however, are the performances. Read full review

Lou Lumenick

A gritty, well-acted, documentary-style drama. Read full review

Kirk Honeycutt

A compelling albeit highly discouraging portrait. Read full review

Andrew O'Hehir

A scared-straight after-school special, but actually good. Read full review

Jan Stuart

Bracing and remarkably compact drama, which invests some standard movie tropes of rough-and-tumble urban life with deep feeling and urgency. Read full review

Ernest Hardy

Well-meaning but mediocre. Read full review

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User Reviews

ChadS.

Apr 27, 2007

When the three female leads converge in mutual incarceration, "On the Outs" succumbs to didacticism when a jail speaker lays down the rhetoric of the filmmakers to his captive audience, and more pointedly, to us, just in case we couldn't diagnose the problem for ourselves. "It's When the three female leads converge in mutual incarceration, "On the Outs" succumbs to didacticism when a jail speaker lays down the rhetoric of the filmmakers to his captive audience, and more pointedly, to us, just in case we couldn't diagnose the problem for ourselves. "It's Hard to be a Saint in the City," just ask Suzette's mother, whose daughter is an obvious victim of her environment; a good girl who is not strong-willed enough to transcend all the drugs and guns of hip-hop's Jersey, not "The Boss' " Asbury Park wonderland of 1973. "On the Outs" suggests that being feminine is detrimental for a girl(the ghetto is too patriarchial); that traditional gender assignation will get you pregnant, or hooked on drugs. Oz(Judy Marte) has a maternal side(she loves her mentally-impaired brother), but unlike Marisol(Paola Mendoza), whose daughter is taken away by the state, and Suzette(Anny Mariano), who falls in love with a gangbanger; this girl presents herself as one of the guys. Oz still ends up in prison, but the drug pusher(more readily identified as a masculine role) leaves you with the impression that she'll eventually recognize the hypocrisy of her moral outrage(against mom, against Marisol), and realize that the Statue of Liberty is indeed colorblind, even though it's harder for some socio-economic groups than others. From the Jersey shoreline, Oz can only see Lady Liberty's backside; an ass, the perfect metaphor for how America isn't the land of opportunity if you're a disadvantaged minority(or so it seems). "On the Outs" keeps it real. There are no happy endings for any of the girls, only hope.… Expand

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