Outrage

Cannes (Official Selection) - “Beat” Takeshi treds yakuza territory for the first time in nearly a decade. Graphic violence and sharp suits are surely a given, and Paul Martin is on (four-fingered) hand to find out if there is sufficient substance beneath the style.

Much as I love the album on which it appears, I find I very difficult to listen to Chain Saw by the Ramones. It is the opening few seconds which are the source of my discomfort, the New York punks' trademark cretin hop being preceded by the sound of the chopping tool that provides the song with its title. The problem is that it doesn't actually sound like a chainsaw, it sounds like a dentist's drill boring into a tooth. In other words, quite the most unbearable noise to have thus far been happened upon by humanity. Synonymous with prolonged pain, the dentist's drill was put to most notorious cinematic use in that nigh-on unbearable sequence in John Schlesinger's Marathon Man, when wizened Nazi fugitive Szell uses one to torture out-of-his-depth jogger Babe.

While it will probably never match the fame of that scene, there is a dentist's drill moment in Takeshi Kitano's Cannes 2010 competitor Outrage which is so grisly as to make Marathon Man's impromptu root canal look as comparatively tame as Kermit the Frog sat on a lily pad singing It's Not Easy Being Green. This horror show dentistry, carried out by saturnine enforcer Otomo (played by the director) on rogue yakuza boss Murase (Renji Ishibashi) is just one in a cavalcade of horrendous acts that will leave even battle-hardened audience members watching through the cracks between their fingers. Let's not beat (geddit?) around the bush about this, Outrage is a quite breathtakingly violent film. Even putting aside the copious beatings and multitude of shootings, there are still face-slashings, penitent finger slicings, a chopsticks stabbing (exactly what it sounds like), the bloodiest wet room scene this side of Eastern Promises, and the most wince-inducing filmic tongue injury since Oldboy's just-plain-wrong use of a pair of scissors.

Kitano's Otomo is a component of a teetering yakuza pyramid, all leading up to 'Mr. Chairman' (Soichiro Kitamura, dudded up like the Kim Jong-il of crime). The big boss is keen to put the squeeze on the errant Murase, ordering Ikemoto (Jun Kunimura) to do the deed. There is one problem with this; Ikemoto shares a bond with Murase forged in the pen. So he instead turns to Otomo, the guy for the dirty jobs, to carry out Mr. Chairman's dictat. Tit-for-tat exchanges swiftly give way to murder, and devious plotting gets underway within the various factions, as each sees a chance to increase their power within the syndicate.

The success that director Takeshi Kitano has previously enjoyed in the West with yakuza films like Sonatine and Brother hints at a genuine audience fascination with the yakuza, particularly the way that criminality – by its nature, duplicitous – is attempted to be accommodated within a strict system of honour, and the hypocrisy consequently resulting from this. As well as this point of thematic interest, Kitano's movies are also known for their controlled, understated style (understated aside from the violence of course), and the presentational aspect which really impresses in Outrage is the music by Keiichi Suzuki. Although infrequently deployed, his score is coolly atmospheric when it can be heard, with some '70s-style synths evoking the feel of icy disconnection experienced by the emotionally-divested characters.

Outrage is undeniably well-made and proves to be a perfectly effective gangster tale. But this is really the least you expect from director-writer-star Kitano, who has made more crime thrillers than I've had tempura dinners (and this is one writer who just lurves the tempura). Otomo, the tough guy with the circle of death closing in around him, feels as much of a “Beat” Takeshi archetype as any Stallone or Willis action hero from the '90s. Okay, the Japanese multi-tasker is a better actor than either of the two cited Americans, but it would still be nice to see him challenge himself with a different type of character in one of his yakuza flicks.

The film as a whole feels slightly old hat too. How many times have we seen the gangster domino rally of death before? The stakes being raised higher and higher, before the characters are offed one by one, in order of their importance to the narrative. The conveyed message is hardly revelatory; that those who deal in violence will have inevitably fall victim to it themselves. Or, to put it another - slightly paternalistic - way, crime does not pay. Unless you're Takeshi Kitano, who has hit on a successful formula that has been repackaged several times now. Tasty enough, yes, but even with a wait between portions there can be no surprise it is not as stimulating now as it was the first few times around.

Rating on a scale of 5 trips to the dentist: 3

Release date: TBC
Directed by: Takeshi Kitano
Written by: Takeshi Kitano
Cast: Takeshi Kitano, Jun Kunimura, Kippei Shiina, Renji Ishibashi
Rating: TBC (It sure as heck ain't gonna be a PG-13, mind)
Running time: 109 minutes