Watch Outside the Law For Free

Don't listen to the negative reviews

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Guess what... I never took History in school. It was not through lack of want, believe me. So it was only during this World Cup I discovered( From the commentators, no less ) that GASP Algeria used to belong to France. And now, I find myself watching a film about that very struggle, for them be an independent nation. Coincidence, no?Encompassing about 40 years, Outside The Law centres around One Algerian family as they are forced to give up their lands and move into skid row. There are three brothers, and as they grow up we see them take on very different fates: One becomes a soldier, the other a revolutionary while inside prison, and the last sibling joins the criminal underworld. Eventually, all their paths will collide in the dramatic (and long running) saga of Algeria's eventually successful quest to govern itself. Will Scotland follow suit? Don't hold your breathe.A wise man once told me: "There is no good film that is too long, and no bad film that is too short". Never a truer word spoken in this case. as it clocks in at just over two hours... yet I was enraptured till the (very bitter) end. The twist-laden plot takes us from one well directed set piece to another, as bullets fly like confetti and bodies are strewn around without mercy. But despite all this chaos, it still has the time for quieter reflective passages which are just as effective. In fact, maybe even more so. It all combines to create a jewel of a movie. Fantastic.Oh and if there are historic inaccuracies in this script (Which I'm sure there will be) I'm not going to mark it down for that. I'm a critic, not a teacher. Mind you, considering how clueless most of the educators I've met seem to be, maybe that's just as well... 8/10

First of all this is my first review! So why did i choose this movie? Because in my opinion this movie is really underrated and has a low score which is a shame! The other reviewers say that this is a sequel to "Days of Glory" , i have not seen "Days of Glory" but "Hors-la-loi" is a great piece of cinema. Many people such as myself rely on IMDb score and user reviews prior to seeing a movie , and many may be putt off by a score of 6.5 , but believe me and give this one a chance. It's a gritty and noir movie which tells its story without holding back anything! The acting is very good the directing likewise and the cinematography is great. Overall it has some flaws but there are no perfect movies. So if you like movies in general and don't care about the little things than WATCH THIS MOVIE!!!!

Well I neither have the expert historical perspective or the expertise on films of other reviewers, but I'm just an ordinary person who went to see this movie. I loved it because it really shows how people can get sucked into resistance, even if they're very ordinary and not particularly brave, because the other option of not doing anything is so awful. I thought the acting was very convincing and I learnt a lot about that time in Algeria. I spend a lot of time in the south of France so I think this helped me to understand the history of some of the people I know.Goodness me this site wants me to write 10 lines. No wonder everyone else's reviews are so long. I watched it a long time ago when it first came out and so I don't have a clear memory of details, just the overall impression, and I wanted to share that.

Caught this tonight its last night seemingly in theaters here...Simply put the film doesn't quite work the way it should. After a seemingly sure footed beginning, the film falls off a cliff offering scene after scene repeating the same thing as characters plot whom to kill and how to kill them in order to advance their agenda. The characters end up as one dimensional stick figures after a handful of scenes in the beginning establishing their take on the Algerian fight for independence, and after a while the film takes on a seemingly more and more outlandish (and at times almost comedic) Ma Barker and her outlaw sons like feel to it...("oh those boys of mine!") as the mother seems to be completely fine with the increasingly violent activities her sons quickly become consumed with. That's not to say the film doesn't have some beautifully filmed sequences tho-- the one at the end definitely packs a punch, but its not enough to save the whole film.Film didn't start out without interest---as its starting, you witness the difficulties facing the three grown sons of this woman in Algeria--the film is book marked by two real and spectacular bloody events from Algeria's fight for independence used here as the turning points for the three son's awakening to social injustice. After the bloody events of the beginning the film follows the three sons as they're all in different places...one's in jail and experiences a political awakening as a radical Algerian who dreams of taking the fight for freedom back to the streets once he's out, one's in the army and having some problems with the killing that he's doing becoming more and more desensitized, and one moves with his mother to try and start a new life in France and dreams of making money and eventually opening up his own nightclub...eventually the son in jail and the one in the army rejoin their family...and that's where the film's story really kicks into gear as the radical son and the army son join (and really kick-start) the FLA (freedom & liberation of Algeria) organization which from my viewing of the film and nothing else seems to consist of scene after scene of the radical son deciding whom to kill next in the name of his cause. The recruiting of the other two brothers and sticking together as a family to the cause seems to be important at first to the radical brother but quickly breaks with that idea once its established that the son who just wants to make some money has no interest in taking up arms against his new country--least he jeopardize any moneymaking attempts (he got a gig as a boxing promoter--grooming this young up and coming boxer for fame and fortune which figures into the plot later on when it comes about that the now terrorist organization will kill him should he fight in the name of France and not for his true Algerian homeland as he should) Film tries to build some tension from the contrasting beliefs of the two brothers (the third one--the army one after some initial hesitation seems to take to the killing in the name of freedom just fine and thus a once promising character conflict gets pushed to the back burner.) and indeed the fact that the film isn't a complete misfire is attributed to the suspense generated by putting the two brothers in this conflict with one another. One of the most memorable scenes has the radical brother telling the army brother that the time has come to kill their brother in the name of their cause, to which the army brother firmly puts his foot down...a fact that the radical will be thankful for after events unravel in the last half hour of the film. Indeed the climatic sequences where the two of them end up being bound together by their circumstances are not only well staged but so filled with the dramatic tension that was completely lacking in the rest of the film that you wonder why the director didn't cut to the chase with these two brothers sooner leading to what is undeniably a beautifully staged and fully realized all out riot in a train station, but its almost too little too late in terms of interest in the storyline.The idea of an Algerian Once Upon A Time In America (immigrant brothers starting up their own various criminal enterprises coming into conflict with one another) is a good one. I very much liked the way the director tried to create this whole saga around these still potent real world historical events, but i wish the characters (and the film itself) had more to offer then simply boiling down to brotherly love vs personal political beliefs. The film just doesn't sustain your interest in its plot line for its entire running time...lets just say it could've taken a lesson or two from MESSRINE---that film might of been twice as long, but it held your interest twice as much thru its runtime at the very least.