Outside the Wire Movie Review

Streaming on Netflix starting January 15, 2021

“Outside the Wire” is futuristic look at what warfare might come to, if people decide to leave more and more of the decisions up to the ‘machines’. For a future like that to take place, the leaders in charge will rely more on mechanical soldiers and devices that can out-think a mere human. But what if the machines decide that the only way to ‘save the village’ is to ‘burn down the village’?

A military peacekeeping effort, in the year 2036, is taking place in a section of the Ukraine. There are human soldiers who are placed in the field with mechanical soldiers called ‘Gumps’. Drone pilot Thomas Harp (played by Damson Idris) makes a choice that gets some soldiers killed. But he thinks it was justified because he sent down a missile that saved the rest of the squad. The top brass do not agree, and Harp is sent to the front, far from his USA base camp. He is assigned to Captain Leo (Anthony Mackie). In the DMZ, there is no fighting, but ‘outside the wire’ (beyond the perimeter fence), well, that is where Leo will be taking Harp.

Leo confides that the most secret weapon that the Army has is — himself. Leo is a powerful humanoid android, complete with super strength, speed and agility. But Leo needs Harp to assist him in special mission. The Russian-backed rebels are led by Victor Koval (played by Pilou Asbæk). Leo has information that Koval is planning to take control of old USSR nuclear weapons. He will be able to by the launch codes on the black market and target the USA.

The Base commander Major Eckhart (played by Michael Kelly) knows that the Koval group is up to something terrible. But the ground force can only handle peace-keeping operations. He is leaving anything aggressive and under-cover up to Leo, now joined by Harp. When they go past that wall, they will be on their own. Leo meets up with woman named Sofiya (played by Emily Beecham) who is protecting refugees. But she is also plugged into the underground and has the information Leo needs. They go after a local arms dealer, who gives them the location of Koval.

Harp sees that Leo is running an intricate operation of deception. What he says might not mean what he says it means. Harp and Leo find a hostage situation in a bank where the codes are stored in the vault. Leo goes in to find Koval and take him down. Leo instructs Harp to get the hostages out and call Eckart. They need a drone strike on the bank while Koval is still inside. That will be the only way to stop him.

Harp is able escape with most of hostages, and the drone strike destroys the bank. But was Koval killed? And what happened to Leo? Did he escape? And most importantly — what happened to the old Soviet nuclear launch codes? Harp finds out that not everything that he thinks happened actually did happen. There is a rogue operation underway, but what is the nature of the threat?

“Outside the Wire” is a well-paced action movie, where the brawn outshines the brains. The story leads to a slightly confused ending. But the action sequences are right up there with many of the best (“John Wick:”, “The Matrix”, “Equilibrium”, as examples). The connection between Harp (Damson Idris) and Leo (Anthony Mackie) works very well. They each need each other, and are learning from one another. But Leo has plans that he is keeping hidden, for his own reasons.

The production values look really good, so they are able to create things that might be possible in the not-so-distant future. There are air-borne drones that are around today, but there are also creepy mechanical ‘dogs’ (with shades of “Black Mirror”) and the mechanical “Gumps”.  These seem a little far-fetched, but they could be possible in 25 years, right?

When you want put your feet up and see something with a ton of good action, then fire up “Outside the Wire”. Just don’t let your mechanical dog fetch your slippers. He might decide to take you out instead.

Streaming on Netflix starting January 15, 2021