Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Out of Death’ on VOD, a Sub-Generic Thriller Barely Starring Bruce Willis

Sneaking onto VOD is Out of Death, which makes one regret peering at Bruce Willis’ recent filmography. He’s the rent-a-star here, as he is so much in the last decade-plus, for movies that someone out there recently labeled “geezer teasers” — namely, cheapo projects that fly in big names for a day or four so their names and faces can be featured on promo materials despite their limited screen time. Those type of frequently godawful movies stud the resume of infamous producer Randall Emmett, the inspiration for Entourage character Turtle, and a minor celebrity best known as the husband of Vanderpump Rules star Lala Kent, who, not coincidentally, has a major role in this thing. Not that anyone in their right mind would be OK with seeing their name on it, mind you; here’s why.

OUT OF DEATH: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Oh shit — Bruce Willis is pointing a gun at two cops! What the devil is going on here. Cut away to Shannon (Jaime King), who will later introduce herself to another character by saying, “My name is Shannon Mathers. I capture images,” just like any normal photographer would do. Her father recently passed and so here she is, hiking a Georgia forest trail, hunting for a nice place to spread his ashes, when she spies some real bull crap going down: Police officer Billie Jean (Lala Kent) is collecting dough from a neck-tatted scumdrop who sells the dope the local cops lift from the evidence locker. Shannon is secretly using her image-capturing device to capture moving images when Billie uses her bullet-propulsion device to put a bullet through the guy’s skull until he’s dead. Cue title card: CHAPTER I: THE UNINTENDED. There will be other headers like this, including one titled THE MESS. Hey, I didn’t say it, you said it.

Meanwhile, in a nearby house, Jack Harris (Willis) is sad. His wife recently died and here he is, visiting his niece in rural Georgia because the Philadelphia cops forced him into early retirement apparently because his wife died? If so, what a bunch of butts they are! “What’s a city guy like me supposed to do around here?” he wonders aloud. Well, take your gun but leave your cell phone behind for a nice quiet spiritually cleansing walk through the woods, where bears live, which is why he takes the gun. And hey guess what, he’s gonna need that gun when he stumbles across Billie and her fellow officer Tommy (Tyler Jon Olson) hunting down THE UNINTENDED, a.k.a. image-capturer Shannon, because she saw something she shouldn’t have and captured the image.

Turns out the local sheriff’s office is a picked peck of rotten apples, because Billie and Tommy are under the thumbs of Sheriff Hank Rivers (Michael Sirow), a corrupt buttcrust who organized the whole drug scam, and also is running for mayor, and may just have to clean up THE MESS himself, goldangit. Shannon finds a Rambo knife in an old shed, then runs into Jack, who offers to help, although it’s beyond me why she’d want assistance from a character played by Bruce Willis mumbling his lines while his brain is on Neptune — must be because he brought his gun with him. Not gonna spoil the beans on how this all shakes out, but suffice to say, it will be disappointingly wack as f—.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Out of Death — sweet title bro — lacks the type of specificity of narrative that would render it reminiscent of anything not written by someone with a crossbow bolt lodged in their cerebrum. Actually, maybe it’s kind of like one of those Sniper movies.

Performance Worth Watching: Bruce? Bruce? (Waving hand in front of eyes) Anybody home? Bruce?

Memorable Dialogue: Cop talk:

Billie: You think he’ll be mad?

Tommy: Does the Tin Man have a sheet metal cock?

Sex and Skin: We have no confirmation as to the material composition of the Tin Man’s cock, so, none.

Our Take: The best I can say for Out of Death — seriously what does that title even MEAN? Or is my lit-crit background failing me? — is it’s the latest in a long line of movies I’ve seen recently in which characters get Very Stabbed but barely seem to notice after the obligatory scene in which a piece of clothing is torn and wrapped around the wound. This a sub-generic almost-action movie with a screenplay so threadbare, daylight screams through it like a rabid banshee. The film is 95 logic-deprived minutes during which five people wander around a forest in scenes that graduated from the loiter-and-dawdle school of pacing; occasionally, the people try to kill and/or escape from each other in scenes that graduated from the what-was-THAT school of editing. One scene features a TV report in which an on-screen graphic misspells sheriff as “sherriff.” Look maw, this one has a real eye for detail, donnit? (Hocks into a spittoon)

As for Willis, his line-readings are, well, is “concerning” the right word? His character assesses a dramatic situation by saying, “Shit don’t go DOWN like this!” and one may be prompted to point out that people don’t TALK like this. His warped, slo-mo diction seems like the work of a non-English speaker who learned his lines phonetically. His voice sounds so odd, I’d wager he wasn’t contractually obligated to show up for post-production overdubs, so someone else filled in for him. The script does him no favors — he and King share a heartfelt moment where they sit on a rock in the woods and share a little about themselves, and they begin by saying how they just need to sit down on the rock and share a little about themselves. The scene only makes sense tonally if they’ve had their bodies snatched by aliens and replaced by artificial human approximations. Other than all of it, this movie is really great.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Someone call the sherrrrrrrrriff to come and arrest Out of Death for being f—ing terrible.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Where to stream Out of Death