Outside the Wire Parent Guide

In the not-so-distant future, a terrifying civil war has erupted in Europe. Pro-Russian secessionist forces have broken into open conflict with a scattered resistance movement, bolstered by a unilateral American occupation. Drone pilot Lt. Thomas Harp (Damson Idris), flying a mission in support of a platoon of Marines in Ukraine, finds himself in serious trouble for disobeying direct orders after firing without authorization. Now reassigned to the front, Harp finds himself under the command of Captain Leo (Anthony Mackie): But Leo isn’t like any commanding officer Harp has ever met. He’s a prototypical, highly advanced military robot, and on a mission outside the wire, Harp finds that Leo might just have an agenda of his own…

Outside the Wire is a little clumsy. It’s trying to be a thought-provoking action thriller, but The Bourne Identity this ain’t. The special effects are a dicey at times, and the plot wobbles between interesting and fairly silly. However, the stunt work is pretty good (it’s not like Anthony Mackie doesn’t have some serious experience from his role as Falcon in the Marvel superhero films).

The movie does, however, come with a laundry list of content concerns, most egregious of which are the 97 extreme profanities. There’s also rather a lot of violence – which I did anticipate, this being an action flick. People are shot, blown up, thrown off buildings, and in one particularly unpleasant scene, shot and tortured for information before being beaten to death with sticks. On the plus side, there is literally no sexual content and not so much as a reference to drugs or alcohol. With an “R” rating, they could have gotten away with a lot more, and I’m glad they didn’t. I was busy enough just counting the swear words without having to track a bunch of lascivious alcoholism.

While this production doesn’t exactly illustrate Dwight D. Eisenhower’s prophetic warning about the military industrial complex, it does raise some important issues. From critiques of America’s drone strike policies to concerns about militarized artificial intelligence, Outside the Wire manages to be a vehicle for some serious questions – it’s just couched in two hours of violent, profanity-riddled, Cold-War era paranoia. Which, if I’m being honest, is still kind of fun.