Right from the opening credits The Outsider feels like one of Netflix's Marvel series condensed down to a two hour running-time with all of the interesting stuff having been cut out. There are a lot of filler shots and the narrative feels fragmented. At one point I actually had to check to make sure I hadn't accidentally skipped ahead because I had no idea why Jared Leto's face suddenly looked all beat up. Apparently there was just a time jump. The sporadic, bloody violence and beautiful Japanese scenery is all the movie has to keep it going. Speaking of Leto, his whiteness is a legitimate problem. He looks so out of place and it doesn't make much sense why all but one of the Yakuza members he finds himself around would embrace him so openly. His character's race and background also contribute nothing to the plot. He is only here to act as a gateway to open up American audiences to the material. Skin color aside, Leto also feels miscast. His role in the Yakuza is that of an enforcer. The guy they call to rough people up. While he may be a secret bad ass in real life, the actor/singer doesn't have any sort of threatening appearance. It makes the whole white boy lead thing feel even more misguided. We could use more Asian culture in western cinema. While I appreciate The Outsider's efforts to make that happen, it's just not the movie that was going to make it work in the first place, and not just because of it's ill-advised main character. This really would have been better of as a show on Netflix as opposed to an original film. The material could have had some time to breath, a fully developed plot could have emerged, and some character growth could have occurred that may have even justified an American protagonist. I could see The Outsider as a show succeeding in all of the areas where Iron Fist failed. But instead we get an empty crime-drama that's only redeeming factors rest in it's depiction of Japanese culture. Something it squanders a bit by mostly using it as window dressing and letting the white man prance around like he owns that place.