The cheesy techno-thriller “The Outsider” is a blaring B-movie that doesn’t have much going for it, but it does have an engaging action hero in its leading man, a snarling Cockney badass named Craig Fairbrass.
Fairbrass is a cross between Steven Seagal and Jason Statham as Lex, a brutish British mercenary who doesn’t like it when he hears his daughter (Melissa Ordway) has been found dead in Los Angeles. But the body in the morgue isn’t his daughter’s, and her skeevy boss (James Caan) at a tech firm is behaving suspiciously. Luckily for Lex, a cop (Jason Patric) is sympathetic to his suspicions.
Fairbrass’ glowering presence and sarcastic reactions make this paint-by-numbers action flick watchable when he’s on screen, but the movie (for which he got a writing credit) suffers by his absence whenever he isn’t raging through the scenery, tearing new apertures for everyone who crosses him. May Fairbrass the actor find a more interesting story than the one by Fairbrass the writer.