It’s Criminal

Hollie Clemence chats to Danny Dyer, Nick Love and Sean Bean about their controversial new film Outlaw

After watching 105 minutes of nose breaking, neck cracking and general men-beating-the-crap-out-each-other violence, I’m sitting in the press room of the swanky Soho Hotel, feeling a little apprehensive about meeting the rebellious ‘outlaws’.

Then, Danny Dyer swaggers in with a cheeky grin and I feel more at ease. He sits at the opposite end of the table to director Nick Love but it is clear that they are a close pair, having worked together on The Business, The Football Factory and Goodbye Charlie Bright. Despite their accomplishments they both seem completely unaffected and genuinely passionate about their work.

Love explains: “For me and Danny to work with well-known actors was quite a big turnaround. When Bob (Hoskins) turned up I fucking shit myself, I could hardly say action.”

Between them sits Sean Bean and Rupert Friend who star alongside Dyer as desperate men who take the law into their own hands, executing brutal revenge upon those who have wronged them. Yet all four men gradually reveal their softer sides; Friend admits to choosing the script because it made his girlfriend cry and both Dyer and Bean describe the concerns they have for their own children during a discussion about fear, a theme central to the film.

Dyer becomes quite serious about this. “I fear for my daughter who I’m bringing up in this country. I can’t really let her play out and I keep her in my house all the time. The fact that we are at war at the moment, she knows all about that and knows that bombs go off on trains. I do fear for her,” although he can’t help adding, “I don’t like spiders either.”

Love also admits: “I’ve always been terrified of violence, which is probably why I keep making violent films. I’m trying to exorcise some kind of demon or something.”

He talks about previous reactions to his films and the accusations that have been made about him glamourising violence.

He seems fairly amused that he has put ‘some people’s noses out of joint’ and takes a refreshingly simple outlook towards his job:

“At the end of the day it’s a film with a bunch of characters in it…I think it’s a luxury of being a filmmaker to ask questions and not necessarily have to answer them.”

Bean is especially enthusiastic about Love’s style. “Having worked on stuff that’s very formulaic, such as big American films that pander to an audience and maybe over-explain what a story’s all about without allowing them to make their own minds up, I think this story hits you in the face.”

Nick is happy for the audience to interpret the film in their own way. “If there’s a message in there somewhere, it’s not to take the law into your own hands but I would be a liar if I said that that was my intention when we were making the film. I made the film because I think it is an interesting debate. People either love it or hate it and that’s kind of OK.”