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On the Outs
EMAILPRINTYouth House Productions / Fader Films
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 14 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 2 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by: Lori Silverbush
Directed by:
Lori Silverbush
Michael Skolnik
Release Date:
Theatrical: July 13, 2005
DVD: May 9, 2006
Running Time: 86 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Starring Anny Mariano, Judy Marte, Paola Mendoza, Dominic Colon, Flaco Navaja, Danny Rivera, Don Parma, and Earl Thomason
A dramatic narrative feature based upon the real stories of girls from the streets and juvenile jail, who lent their voices and unique stories to the filmmakers. These are girls who struggle with all the highs and lows of teenage life in an inner-city world that makes its own rules. (Fader Films)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site Film Forum Profile
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
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.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
What makes the film feel genuine, however, are the performances.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
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.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
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.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
Powerful, documentary-style drama draws on the real-life experiences of "at risk" teenage girls.
Read Full Review >Variety Joe Leydon
Skillfully entwines stories of three young women drifting in and out of a Jersey City juvenile detention center.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
A scared-straight after-school special, but actually good.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Jan Stuart
Bracing and remarkably compact drama, which invests some standard movie tropes of rough-and-tumble urban life with deep feeling and urgency.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
A compelling albeit highly discouraging portrait.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson
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.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Laura Sinagra
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.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
On the Outs has its rewards, especially in the mesmerizing performance of Marte.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 9.0 (out of 10) based on 2 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Chad S. gave it an8:
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.
rob s. gave it a10:
A potent story that has more heart than any of its kind.
