70
Los Angeles Times by Betsy Sharkey
The filmmaker is at his best unspooling the politics of independence, which he does with such confident fervor that you always understand the fight.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
75
Philadelphia Inquirer by Carrie Rickey
A gripping French-Algerian coproduction that makes Algeria's epic struggle for independence from France look like a gangster movie.
60
Even the movie's trio of outstanding actors come off like mouthpieces from a creaky Group Theater play, spiced with an occasional Cagneyism or two.
91
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
Rachid Bouchareb's intensely dramatized, passionately partisan story of militancy in the struggle for Algerian independence from France after World War II makes effective use of "Godfather" storytelling theatrics.
75
A powerful, decades-spanning epic about that country's fight for independence centering on three brothers.
65
A companion film to "Days of Glory," Rachid Bouchareb's 2006 feature about Algerian soldiers who fought for France in World War II, Outside the Law is another historical drama with a heavy heart and a knack for genre.
40
Village Voice by Nick Pinkerton
The production design is nice enough, but Bouchareb's four-country co-production isn't an epic-it's just long.
75
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
At the very least a superior action film, in which the action sequences are plausible and grounded in reality.
50
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
As powerful and well made as it is, Outside the Law is too schematic and single-minded to lodge itself in your mind as a fully realized cinematic epic. Its few female characters are sketchy at best. It is all politics, all the time.
50
San Francisco Chronicle by Walter Addiego
Aims to make epic drama of Algeria's battle for independence, but there are moments when you would swear you're watching a "Godfather" knockoff.