Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

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

Initially intriguing, though overwrought, but ultimately pointless and silly.A Hollywood adaptation of Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon". Three men meet at a deserted station in the middle of nowhere. Soon their discussion turns to the trial that occurred in the nearby town the previous say. The trial concerned the death of a man. Three people claim they killed him, and we see their version of the events. Who is correct and why are two of them (at least...) lying?From the outset there is a degree of unnecessary complexity about the script. The script is overly wordy, almost to the point of being Shakespearean, and feels padded. The plot is quite interesting but as it goes on it becomes less and less plausible, and feels complex just for the sake of it. Soon the holes appear, none of which are filled in by the end of the movie.After a point the implausibility and complexity have descended into farce. The last few scenes are quite silly and ultimately you're left wondering what the point was and even possibly what the story was...The casting provides some interesting appearances. Paul Newman puts in a good, almost over-the-top, performance as the Mexican bandit. William Shatner is there, as a preacher (two years later Star Trek started...). Edward G Robinson gets the role of the verbose swindler (he is largely responsible for my "Shakespearean" comment). Laurence Harvey and Claire Bloom put in reasonably solid performances as the married couple. To be honest, even though many regard Rashomon as a classic, I don't. The plot for The Outrage demonstrates why Rashomon is overrated.

It is amazing that Martin Ritt and Paul Newman made this film between their two masterpieces "Hud" and "Hombre". It seems that they should have known that the stage acting that Newman was doing would not be effective on film. In stage acting, you play broad and loud because the 23rd row has to see and hear you. In film you can adjust the volume and go in for the close-up to make sure the slightest gesture gets shown. For whatever strange reason, everybody, with the exception of super-old pro Edward G. Robinson, is doing stage acting. It comes across as over-the-top and ridiculous most of the time. The acting seriously undercuts the serious metaphysical questions about truth that the plot raises.Newman's performance matches his worse performance in "From the Terrace," although, I haven't seen him in "the Silver Chalice" (allegedly his worse). He reminded me of the 1960's cartoon commercial character for Frido's Corn Chips, "the Frido Bandido." He has on heavy stage make-up, so he is hardly recognizable, and his accent sounds quite fake. The real problem is that this is not a leading man role, but a role for a character actor. There were probably hundreds of out of work Spanish speaking actors in Hollywood at this time who could have done the role better.William Shatner isn't playing to the 23rd row, he is playing to the 46th row. As a priest who has lost his faith, he has one pained look throughout the movie. One of the nice things about Shatner is how relaxed and animated he is in all his roles, from the Twilight Zone to Star Trek to Boston Legal. Here he is the opposite: restrained to the point of being a cartoon cut-out.Claire Bloom and Laurence Harvey also give mundane and forgettable performances.For cinema fans this is worth seeing because it is a Martin Ritt film and he was a terrific director. However, like every great director, he had his misfires, and this is one of them. It is watchable, but much more should have been delivered considering the classical source material.

If this film was made today it would most likely be released in "art" film theaters. A vanity film for the director and the stars, the movie sort of plods along, trying to make points about important things in life without coming to any final absolute conclusion.The story is concerned about a rape that took place and is told in flashbacks thru four different viewpoints of the ones that were present (the bandit, the wife, a passerby, and we even get the testimony from the dead husband!) Each one, of course, puts their own spin on the story. What is the truth?...Hmmmm.Paul Newman, in what might appear as a bit of apparent miscasting, does a superb job as the Mexican bandit---to the inattentive eye, he is unrecognizable as Paul Newman for the first few minutes of the film. William Shatner plays a preacher and once again appears to "overact" in a role that should have been played more subtly. Edward G. Robinson plays his role with gusto and is always interesting to watch. Laurence Harvey has a part that required the least amount of acting in any of his films---much of the time he is tied to a tree!

If John Sturges made "Seven Samurai" as an A western, and Sergio Leone "Yojimbo" as a spaghetti western, Martin Ritt chose the B western for "Rashomon", in "The Outrage". It follows the path set by "The Ox-Bow Incident", "The Gunfighter", "The Showdown" and "High Noon", the "intellectual" western in black and white. The story is excellent and adapts well for the genre, with four people telling different versions of the same murder. Claire Bloom and Lawrence Harvey are the married couple who get assaulted by Carrasco (Newman). Paul Newman is a great actor, his performance in Martin Ritt's "Hombre" is a proof of that, but there is a limit on how far you can go acting against your type. Newman set an impossible task for himself playing Carrasco, that part should go for actors like Eli Wallach or Anthony Quinn. I would not say his performance is a total failure, but the problem is that it is very important to understand Carrasco's character and that is not achieved by Newman visually, only when he verbalizes it in a Spanish that does not sound right. The irony is that Newman is such a charismatic actor that you actually enjoy his presence in the film. Edward G Robinson is the Con Man, what a performance! "The Outrage" is a very good film, it deserved better reviews than it got from the critics.