REVIEW: ‘The Out-Laws’ Is One Of The Year’s Best Comedies

The Out-Laws is an absolute surprise smash of a comedy. A Netflix Original directed by Tyler Spindel and written by Evan Turner and Ben Zazove, we open on Owen (Adam Devine) and Parker (Nina Dobrev) a few days out from their wedding. Owen is an unbelievably awkward but entirely sweet and sincere bank manager and Parker is remarkably and quite genuinely smitten, despite being several classes out of his league. But when she finds out that her parents, Bill (Pierce Brosnan) and Lilly (Ellen Barkin) are, in fact, going to make it to the wedding after all, it’s not long before Owen finds out who they really are.

This movie is truly one of the funniest I’ve seen in a long time and easily my favorite comedy of the year so far. Every single part of it works. Devine plays the utmost incompetent, squeamish, goof of a character whose every line is at once terribly awkward but so sincere. Not a single line misses. And it only works because Parker is genuinely in love with him. He’s not the butt of her jokes. She’s not faking it for some third-act reveal. She genuinely just loves him and that’s that. Parker doesn’t get nearly enough screen time, relegated to a damsel or a punchline most of the movie, but I’m quite glad she at least serves to make it clear that Own’s a sweet weirdo, not just a loser.

All of his neuroses are juxtaposed with his in-laws, who are quite simply too cool, too hot, and too intense for him to possibly hang with. Yet, he really tries his darndest anyway. And while his trusting and naive nature precipitates the early reveal that Billy and Lilly are, in fact, bank robbers, you can’t help but love the two of them as they rib Owen and rattle off killer joke after joke. Although, none of them come close to the full-blown belly laughs Richard Kind drew out of me as Owen’s dad. His part is small but it is the perfect role for this perfect character actor and takes what is already a hilarious affair to another level every single time he shows up. Michael Rooker and Julie Hagerty also really round out the comedy as an FBI agent and Owen’s mother respectively, as well as a number of other characters all movie long.

The movie’s certainly not without its flaws. I don’t love the weird accent Poorna Jagannathan seems to be putting on as Rehan, the mysterious figure who drives the true plot of the movie. I also don’t love the violence against a dog that happens for no reason other than comedy. It’s not particularly funny and could have been handled any number of other ways. But truly, The Out-Laws is packed with so many truly well-written and perfectly timed jokes that in the climactic scene I let out a laugh so hard and so loud that I had to pause and rewind it to watch it two more times just to not miss a beat. It’s not even a moment that on paper should be especially funny. But because I spent the whole movie laughing so hard at Own and enjoyed the general vibe of the movie so much that when this big moment struck, it just landed so perfectly.

The Out-Laws is one of my biggest surprises and favorite comedies of the year. No one piece of the formula on its own could necessarily stand without the relationship the desperate characters have towards one another, but as a whole, it is full of genuinely hilarious scene after scene, all without an ounce of the kind of insincerity or tropey twists that could have easily bogged it down.

The Out-Laws is streaming now on Netflix