The Outsiders

If you absolutely adore Nigel Harman this is so for you, I am one of those people and from the moment he came jogging onto the screen in tracksuits, a nuclear war couldn't make me turn the TV off. The whole programme is well acted though and has some skill shots incidenlty whoever decided to dress Harman in black and leather and hoodies and suits all the way through deserves a medal!

The plot however has so many holes it is ridiculous, seriously nothing is explained to you and the script is hardly skillful and the fact that it was made for drama shows in it's feeble attempts at CGI.

Whoever wrote the script though had obviously been up all night watching pirated copies of James Bond and the Da Vinci Code though, it is a truellly shockingly bad script. I also have no idea why they got Brian Cox in for perhaps a day's filming?! Cut some of the ridiculous close ups of the 'baddie's knowing smiles' and give us some more of him!!

However I am glad I watched it and will try to again, it's a lot of fun if you can somehow block out the plot and just enjoy

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

Nathan Hyde (Nigel Harman) is ekking out a quiet existence in a remote seaside location as a chef, until he starts talking to an attractive woman in the restaurant. One thing leads to another and they end up in bed- but the woman has been a little devious and before he knows it he's taken hostage by helicopter. It's here we learn that Nathan has a bit of an extraordinary past, as an expert evasion expert. Now an organisation known as The Establishment want him to sneak into an island and retrieve a stolen painting. Nathan's doubts are removed when his daughter's safety comes to rest on it...

Long running British soap opera East Enders has never been renowned for it's stellar acting and has yet to produce a Sean Bean or Ben Kingsley. But that doesn't stop some of it's stars, such as hunky Nigel Harman, from trying to avoid disappearing into the realms of panto land forever and so we have The Outsiders, a distracting but totally unmemorable and rather corny take on the spy/world-wide mega-lomaniac premise. The writer is obviously a fan of the sort of spy thrillers that were about a lot in the 60s and the whole idea seems to have been lifted from one that I don't know the name of (it was spoofed on The Simpsons once!) But in trying to make it appeal to a more modern audience, this ITV production has just managed a campy retro feel rather than a trendy new one. **

Where do ITV get their script writers from? this could have been an amazing programme! you have Nigel Harman who's brooding good looks and athleticism could have been put to much better use,Brian Cox who is an amazing actor and who can be incredibly menacing when he needs to be, Colin Salmon who can cut a presence in pretty much any scene, and what did you get? dated, boring, drivel....... I haven't got a problem with ITV trying their "star" vehicles, but for pity's sake, use these people as actors rather than purely faces.

The amount of clichés in this - wife dead, daughter unavailable, dying twin sister, eternal life formula blah blah blah - just went to prove that - and I hate to say this being a brit - the Americans do this kind of drama so much better, where were the fight scenes? (counted a couple, not enough for an hour and a half), the graphics when Nathan was hanging out of the helicopter were terrible, and that stupid woman who played his partner? oh please!!!!!!!!!!! Not impressed,not impressed at all, in fact, my boyfriend was so bored by it he went to sleep!!

I rather enjoyed this highly derivative piece of action adventure. The references to all before it were great to pick off. They really threw everything into the mix; Bond, Bourne, the Da Vinci Code, 3 days of the Condor, the Persuaders, as well as The Saint to name but a few. Personally, I loved it, particularly the 60's throwback stuff, the title screen reminded me of the Time Tunnel and lines going across the screen in place of a fade out were great. It's the latest in a long line of TV action and reminded me of stuff like the Sandbaggers, Department S, Callan and the Professionals. Even the gardens of the Stately home reminded me of the Village from the Prisoner as did the scene when the lead woke up in his room! The choreography they used in the fight with the Ninja assassins came straight out of the Bourne Identity movie but I really enjoyed watching it, especially the elbow smash! The perfect antidote to a soap filled Tuesday night! Just wonderful! There was a load of bad writing on offer, such as the schmovie goers guide where the female lead explained the male leads back story for the benefit of the viewers and the Ninja assassin carrying a calling card! I can forgive this because of the short run time. The CGI was a bit poor in places and I could just about forgive putting place names on scenes showing world famous landmarks. In short, if you like any of the above named shows then this is for you, albeit with a tongue in cheek approach. If you like Spooks / MI5 this is the other side of the coin. I hope they make more.

When looking at trailers for this ITV Drama it was clearly an attempt at turning Nigel Harman (yet another ex-soap star jumping to ITV) into a Jason Bourne like character. Hell, it even had Brian Cox in it! I thought I'd give it a go. How bad could it be I thought...

But within 5 minutes of watching the programme it was clear that Jason Bourne wasn't the writer's only influence. As noted by others The Da Vinci Code was one of them. The list of rips-offs....or homages continued with Out Of Sight (and Don't Look Now), Alias, the list seemed to go on and on.

It's okay to be like another film or TV show, but at least try to do something different.

The Outsiders was a mess, the plot was all over the place, the characters were two dimensional and totally in-consistent. One minute Anna Madeley our attractive female lead seemed to be in total control of the situation, the next she was the new girl at the office wa-a-a-y in over her head....

The villains weren't anything special.

The few action set pieces were fumbled by the director.

Dialogue was turgid.

The tone was all over the place, was it meant to be a bit tongue in cheek or was it meant to be a down and dirty action thriller? It wasn't either.

It was a below average Sunday tea-time show put in a post-watershed time slot for no good reason.

Even the shows title made no sense.

The real annoyance was that only a few days ago ITV1 broadcast a new one-off special of Cracker. Which was 2 hours of TV gold. Proof that ITV can still (occasionally) do good drama.

In a world where shows like 24, CSI and The Shield exist there isn't any excuse for shows like The Outsiders to reach our screens.

I very much doubt it'll be turned into a full series, but if it does it really needs some re-tooling. Getting new writers would be job one.

Avoid, avoid, avoid. Instead put on the DVD of one of the Bourne films.