On the Outs
Metascore
66 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 14 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 14
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 14
  3. Negative: 0 out of 14
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  1. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    91
    On the Outs parses the hopes and terrors of blasted lives with an empathy that never cheapens into pity. The movie wounds as much as it heals, and that's its true power.
  2. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Rene Rodriguez
    75
    The excellent performances by the three leads, and the filmmakers' refusal to sugarcoat reality, elevate the film far beyond after-school special territory into something far more lasting.
  3. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    75
    What makes the film feel genuine, however, are the performances.
  4. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    75
    A gritty, well-acted, documentary-style drama.
  5. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Kirk Honeycutt
    70
    A compelling albeit highly discouraging portrait.
  6. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    70
    Powerful, documentary-style drama draws on the real-life experiences of "at risk" teenage girls.
  7. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Andrew O'Hehir
    70
    A scared-straight after-school special, but actually good.
  8. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Jan Stuart
    70
    Bracing and remarkably compact drama, which invests some standard movie tropes of rough-and-tumble urban life with deep feeling and urgency.
  9. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    70
    Certainly not the first film to show how a crushing urban environment can make a sensible-sounding antidrug slogan like "just say no" seem like so much nonsense, but it's one of the strongest.
  10. Variety
    Reviewed by: Joe Leydon
    70
    Skillfully entwines stories of three young women drifting in and out of a Jersey City juvenile detention center.
  11. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Tasha Robinson
    60
    It's all too easy to dismiss the characters' troubles as entirely of their own making. But the cast's fearless, evocative performances help a great deal.
  12. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Laura Sinagra
    60
    Most importantly, the environment feels real: the accents, the snaps, the working moms and warehouse crack nooks, every dilapidated stairwell, every bodega and lovingly appointed teenage bedroom sanctuary.
  13. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Ann Hornaday
    60
    On the Outs has its rewards, especially in the mesmerizing performance of Marte.
  14. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Ernest Hardy
    50
    Well-meaning but mediocre.

User Reviews

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User Score
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No user score yet- Awaiting 2 more ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 2
  3. Negative: 0 out of 2
  1. ChadS.
    8
    When the three female leads converge in mutual incarceration, "On the Outs" succumbs to didacticism when a jail speaker lays down the rhetoric of the filmmakers to his captive audience, and more pointedly, to us, just in case we couldn't diagnose the problem for ourselves. "It's Hard to be a Saint in the City," just ask Suzette's mother, whose daughter is an obvious victim of her environment; a good girl who is not strong-willed enough to transcend all the drugs and guns of hip-hop's Jersey, not "The Boss' " Asbury Park wonderland of 1973. "On the Outs" suggests that being feminine is detrimental for a girl(the ghetto is too patriarchial); that traditional gender assignation will get you pregnant, or hooked on drugs. Oz(Judy Marte) has a maternal side(she loves her mentally-impaired brother), but unlike Marisol(Paola Mendoza), whose daughter is taken away by the state, and Suzette(Anny Mariano), who falls in love with a gangbanger; this girl presents herself as one of the guys. Oz still ends up in prison, but the drug pusher(more readily identified as a masculine role) leaves you with the impression that she'll eventually recognize the hypocrisy of her moral outrage(against mom, against Marisol), and realize that the Statue of Liberty is indeed colorblind, even though it's harder for some socio-economic groups than others. From the Jersey shoreline, Oz can only see Lady Liberty's backside; an ass, the perfect metaphor for how America isn't the land of opportunity if you're a disadvantaged minority(or so it seems). "On the Outs" keeps it real. There are no happy endings for any of the girls, only hope.… Full Review »
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