‘The Out-Laws’ Review: Brosnan, Barkin, Bandits and Banks

Punctuation is an important thing. It distinguishes “Let’s eat, Grandma!” from “Let’s eat Grandma!” It also makes very clear that the hyphenated Netflix comedy “The Out-Laws” is really going to be about some very problematic in-laws.

Why dwell on punctuation? Because it avoids having to address the movie itself. As for Grandma, if you recently had to cut her off your Netflix account, “The Out-Laws” might be the shove you need to cancel your relationship entirely (with the streaming service, not Grandma). Directed by Tyler Spindel (“Rob Schneider: Asian Momma, Mexican Kids”), it harks back to that golden age of idiot comedies starring Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, David Spade and, generally speaking, the collective alumni of “Saturday Night Live.” A few gems came out of that particular school of humor (“Anchorman,” “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle”). But the worst were enough to wear out one’s wince reflex, and/or one’s gag reflex.

The resident moron in “The Out-Laws” is Owen Browning, played by Adam DeVine. (“How does he have a career?” asked a housemate; people can be cruel.) Owen is a bank manager in what seems to be Atlanta and about to marry his longtime girlfriend, Parker ( Nina Dobrev ), a coupling that provides the biggest mystery of all in a film involving bank robberies, mistaken identities, international gangsterism and the FBI (in the person of the disheveled agent played by a roughed-up Michael Rooker ). It certainly befuddles Parker’s parents, Billy and Lilly McDermott (Pierce Brosnan and Ellen Barkin ), who are type AAA personalities, glad-handing extroverts and cosmopolitan hipsters who all but terrorize Owen’s barely functioning parents ( Julie Hagerty and Richard Kind, easily the only reasons to watch this). What Owen begins to suspect after his bank is robbed—cue lightbulb—is that Billy and Lilly are the infamous Ghost Bandits who have been making unauthorized withdrawals from various financial institutions region-wide before vanishing into the ether.

Putting two and two together is harder for Parker, but, then again, she’s marrying the doofus. The movie-long conflict is about Owen trying to solve the crime while not alienating his fiancée, or getting Billy and Lilly imprisoned, or being murdered by the far-more-sinister Rehan (the usually wonderful Poorna Jagannathan of “Never Have I Ever,” who is wasted here). Putting a bona-fide imbecile at the center of all this leads, inevitably, to far-too-predictable situations in which he will do the wrong thing, say the wrong thing, sob uncontrollably, and generate no sympathy at all.

It will come as little surprise that Adam Sandler, the Abraham of this genre, is a producer on “The Out-Laws.” Mr. Sandler has been brilliant in several dramatic films of recent vintage (“Uncut Gems,” for instance), but his string of post-“SNL” features convinced an entire generation of young moviegoers that stupidity was hilarious and that the infantile was entertaining. Embarrassed laughter isn’t the same as the other kind; a cringe isn’t the same as a smile. And humiliation—of an actor as well as a character—isn’t really funny. Actors need to act, and streaming platforms need content. But they also need us. Judging by “The Out-Laws,” we are priority 3, or 4, or not.

—Mr. Anderson is the Journal’s TV critic.