The Out-Laws is a 2023 American action/crime comedy film directed by Tyler Spindel, written by Evan Turner and Ben Zazove and produced by Adam Sandler. It stars Adam DeVine, Nina Dobrev, Ellen Barkin, Pierce Brosnan and Michael Rooker.
The plot follows Owen T. Browning (DeVine), a bank manager. He's about to marry the woman he loves, Parker McDermott (Dobrev), but on their very wedding week, his bank is robbed by criminals. Owen very strongly suspects the criminals might be none other than... his future in-laws.
It premiered on Netflix on July 7, 2023.
Not to be confused with the series The Outlaws.
The Out-Laws provides examples of:
- Accidental Murder: Owen thought he'd been given a second water gun - until it goes off and gets one of Rehan's mooks. While he does pop off the second mook deliberately, the latter was holding an SMG that goes off, into Rehan.
- Actor Allusion:
- When Neil (Richard Kind) meets Billy (Pierce Brosnan), he tells Billy that he's very attractive. Kind played Mark Devanow on Mad About You, and in the 11th episode of the first season, Devanow references that he had a dream in college about Pierce Brosnan and later asks if anyone ever watched Remington Steele.
- Owen strutting his stuff like a professional thief leads to Lily sarcastically comparing him to James Bond. Billy even asks her which version and she says the fifth one. If you count George Lazenby, that's the right one.
- Lil Rel Howery as bank security, who's fully supportive of his friend and co-worker's love life, while also being horribly inept at his actual job? Yeah, that seems familiar.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Owen's parents keep getting facts about Parker completely wrong, much to his chagrin. Especially about her job, she owns a yoga business and they somehow keep thinking she's a stripper.
- Always Someone Better: Phoebe King, creator of the Atlas vault, with so many layers of security that it makes Owen's vault look like a coffee tin.
- Bait-and-Switch: Owen is stuck with the Ghost Bandits about to pull their One Last Job, but without some kind of getaway transport, forcing Owen to call his parents. Knowing that the FBI guy is already listening in, Owen gives his parents a fake location, while calling his cousin RJ and getting him to be the getaway driver.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Rehan is still completely recognisable despite her head being blown open, confirming she is dead.
- Big Bad: Rehan Zakaryan is a vicious crime lord who has no problem with shooting people in her own office, has the Ghost Bandits under her thumb, and kidnaps their daughter to force them into One Last Job.
- Black Comedy: The Ghost Bandits flee their last job in an armored van, which takes a wrong turn into a cemetery and starts mowing through tombstones, which actually slows down the squad cars on their tail. Crosses into The "Fun" in "Funeral" when the van swerves into an actual funeral and knocks the coffin right into the grave!
- Butt-Monkey: Gary - the only reason he's not the one dealing with the dirty diapers down the pneumatic tube is because he accidentally locked himself in the bank's vault.
- Call-Back:
- When getting tattoos with Billy and Lily, Owen wants a Shrek tattoo but chickens out almost immediately - but he has no problem cosplaying as Shrek with face paint and everything when helping the Ghost Bandits with their next heist.
- Owen flexes his arts and crafts by building models of banks for the Ghost Bandits, including one of the Atlas vault that's supposedly too high-security and risky for them to even attempt. After their intended job goes tits up, they end up going for the Atlas vault anyway.
- Chekhov's Classroom: Owen has had to remind everyone at his bank that there's a hidden latch on the inside of the main vault in case someone is locked inside by accident. Turns out even Phoebe King's supposedly high-tech maximum security vault has one.
- Cool Car: Billy and Lily present Owen with a wedding gift of a bright red "Bumblebee" Camaro, which certainly looks cool next to Owen's "wussy wagon" (amusingly, both cars are from Chevrolet!)
- Cringe Comedy: At one point, Owen comes home with groceries and, thinking he's alone, starts singing about having sex with Parker, not realizing Parker's parents were there the entire time.
- Cultural Translation:
- In the French dub, when Owen and Parker go to bed and Owen references Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, it is awkwardly replaced by the 1970's French preschool show L'île aux enfants and its title song, somehow (French people wouldn't be familiar with Mister Rogers, but neither would Americans be familiar with L'île aux enfants, which stopped in 1982 besides, which also makes the reference alien to most French people born after the 1970s).
- In the Norwegian subtitles, Mr. Rogers is replaced with "Sjonkel Rolf". To be fair, that character appeared on Norwegian tv for decades, up until the 90's, and since the film was merely subtitled, not dubbed, the Mr. Rogers title song is not changed.
- Damsel in Distress: Parker ends up kidnapped by Rehan to force the Ghost Bandits - her parents - into One Last Job.
- Fanboy: Owen is a big fan of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.
- Flipping the Bird: A woman drops a dirty diaper to Owen through the bank's pneumatic tube system and flips him off as she leaves in her car. This apparently isn't the first time she does it.
- Go-Go Enslavement: Invoked - Rehan dresses up Parker in her own wedding dress. Combined with the makeup, it looks like she's getting married in Joisey.
- "I look like a meth-head lottery winner marrying Machine Gun Kelly at a cruise boat casino."
- I Have Your Wife: Billy and Lily have been staying out of Parker's life to prevent Rehan from learning about her. Sadly, coming to town for their daughter's wedding draws Rehan straight to her.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: One special skill the Ghost Bandits have is shooting CCTV cameras with just handguns in rapid succession and uncanny accuracy.
- Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: Owen's parents' habit of Saying Too Much leads up to his mom saying she was in an orgy at the appropriate length of time before he was born. Suspicions do arise, but she convinces Dad that it's his child due to their similar body hair and... dexterity.
- Man on Fire: The sleeve of Neil's shirt catches fire when the Brownings invite Parker at a restaurant, and Neil's wife expands the fire by dousing it with a liquid she didn't think was flammable.
- Meaningful Name: Phoebe King, presented off the bat as an elite bank manager and security specialist. Later on it's implied she's already a mother.
- Meet the In-Laws: Owen is initially excited to meet Parker's parents. Then his first ever contact with them is him singing about having sex with Parker while they're present and he's thinking he's alone...
- Model Planning: At the beginning, Owen plans the guest tables placement of the wedding with action figures.
- One Last Job: The Ghost Bandits hitting Owen's bank was intended as this at first - until Rehan insists that the interest has raised by five times, prompting them to go on one more last job. The fact that she kidnapped their daughter also helps.
- Product Placement: Two Chevrolet cars figure into the plotline - Owen's low-profile Bolt, and the hot red Camaro given to him by Billy and Lily with their Ghost Bandits gear in the trunk, setting him up.
- Pun-Based Title: Blends "outlaws" and "in-laws" (with "out" as the contrary of "in" also).
- Ripped from the Headlines:
- Owen ends up lying to Parker about their wedding cake baker being dead, but "it's fine because she was a racist", bringing to mind actual cases of bakers that refused to cater gay weddings.
- One car chase scene involves a lot of squad cars showing up at once."I thought we defunded the police!"
- Shaking the Rump: Owen briefly shakes his butt when talking to Parker at the beginning.
- Shout-Out: The montage about Phoebe King and her Atlas vault even has Phoebe smugly announcing "I'd do me."
- Standard Snippet: Ludwig van Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" from his Ninth Symphony plays when Phoebe King opens her bank vault for Owen.
- The Stinger: At the start of the end credits, Owen gives Billy some wedding cake... with a paperclip in it.
- Billy: (chewing carefully) Game on.
- Surprisingly Sudden Death: Rehan is killed after one of her mooks is killed, causing his SMG to go off into her.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: When the robbery on Phoebe's vault starts, Owen pretends to hide from the carnage by locking himself into the vault, while actually grabbing all the money. After Rehan is killed, Owen sneaks back into the vault, after learning from Phoebe how to crack it, returns all the money, then pretends he'd been hiding there in a panic the whole time. Phoebe naturally smells a rat, but she can't prove anything.
