Stocked with shiny Toyota, Subaru and Mercedes-Benz cars and guns, thugs and stick models, the English-subtitled, Japanese gangster drama Outrage (Magnet Releasing; in select theaters Dec. 2) delivers a seriously gruesome fix of eerie, nonstop blood pornography. Written and directed by and starring Takeshi Kitano, using a screen name, the film’s creator portrays a Yakuza crime boss named Otomo. The 109-minute movie follows numerous gangsters in the ever-changing hierarchy of Japan’s Yakuza crime syndicate as they jockey for power through the use of brute force.
As a study in how Japan’s cultural worship of collectivism survives in today’s world, aided by criminals from Iran and Ghana, Outrage exposes an underworld born of ancient, dark traditions in which grown men decapitate, torture and scream at each other over saké for the sake of nothing. Like totalitarian Moslems or Chicago gangsters, what the players gain is a meaningless, vague sense of approval from a male-dominated collective and a few moments of pleasure with a vacant stick figure once in a while. Of course, there are degrees to which they go to perform their duty to the tribe, and a couple of gangsters don’t seem as terrible as others. But they all serve the gang blindly and struggle to rise or survive in a corrupt, rabid dog-eat-rabid dog world without heroes. Outrage, perfectly malevolent and miserable on its own terms, is a bloody, brutal show of men at their worst.