Home Movies

Netflix’s most reliably bulletproof brand survives its latest critical obliteration to hijack #1 in 61 countries

The circle of life continues as a panned original claims the top spot.

The Out-Laws. Poorna Jagannathan as Rehan Zakaryan (Center) in The Out-Laws.
Image via Netflix

The long-running agreement between Netflix and Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions has been hugely beneficial to both parties in terms of viewership figures and financial remuneration, and the only losers are subscribers who prefer their original movies to be halfway decent, with The Out-Laws the latest widely-panned offering from the streaming service’s most bulletproof hit factory.

Recommended Videos

At the time of writing, director Tyler Spindel’s action comedy has only gathered a Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of 20 percent from critics, which is par for the course for Happy Madison. However, a user average of just 45 percent is a lot lower than the outfit has become accustomed to, but that hasn’t stopped it from conquering the most-watched charts.

The Out-Laws. (L to R) Pierce Brosnan as Billy, Adam DeVine as Owen, Ellen Barkin as Lilly, Nina Dobrev as Parker in The Out-Laws.
Cr. Scott Yamano/Netflix © 2023.

Per FlixPatrol, The Out-Laws has turned Chris Hemsworth’s Extraction 2 into mincemeat by securing the number one spot in 61 countries around the world, with the power of the Happy Madison brand and promise of more star-studded shenanigans launching Adam DeVine’s suspicion of Pierce Brosnan and Ellen Barkin’s impending in-laws to the very top of the pile.

Since The Ridiculous 6 kicked off the Netflix/Happy Madison love-in, no less than 12 features have rolled off the production line. If you take Sandler’s Hustle out of the equation because it’s more of a drama than a comedy, then the other 11 designed to eke laughs out of audiences have scored somewhere between 0 and 52 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, with The Out-Laws nestled comfortably in the middle to continue the consistent banality that’s defined its output since the very beginning.