Outcome (dir. Jonah Hill)

by Jack Martin | Apr 10, 2026

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 84 mins

UK Distributor: Apple TV

UK Release Date: 10 April 2026

WHO’S IN OUTCOME?

Keanu Reeves, Jonah Hill, Cameron Diaz, Matt Bomer, Cary Christopher, David Spade, Laverne Cox, Kaia Gerber, Roy Wood Jr., Susan Lucci, Atsuko Okatsuka, Martin Scorsese, Welker White, Ivy Wolk

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Jonah Hill (director, writer, producer), Ezra Woods (writer), Matt Dines and Alison Goodwin (producers), Benoît Debie (cinematographer), Nick Houy and Nicholas Ramirez (editors)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A movie star (Reeves) becomes the target of a blackmail scheme…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON OUTCOME?

Humanity has a long, dark history of rewarding bad behaviour. Mel Gibson still has a career (albeit a far less prolific one) after his infamous anti-Semitic outbursts. Harvey Weinstein got away with his crimes for years because he happened to be a powerful producer. The current President of the United States is a convicted felon who’s mentioned in the Epstein files more than Jeffrey Epstein is. And even those who have been marred by comparatively minor (though no less serious) allegations of misconduct, including Jonah Hill who’s been laying low the last few years following reports of abuse by former partners, still wield enough influence to get far less problematic celebrities like Keanu Reeves, Cameron Diaz, Laverne Cox and even Martin Scorsese, who directed Hill to his second Oscar nomination in The Wolf of Wall Street, to appear in their movies.

Yes, all those people and more do indeed show up in Outcome, Hill’s second narrative feature as a director which is, to put it bluntly, a rather strange beast. Billed as a scathing satire of the vacuous Hollywood system, the film makes more sense as a mouthpiece for Hill who, along with co-writer Ezra Woods, appears to have poured all of his misgivings and grievances from the last few years into this film. Weirdly, though, Hill seems to have come at it from an angle of victimhood which, regardless of whether or not the accusations against him are true, makes the film a slightly pathetic attempt to gain some sympathy on his end, and casting an infamously adored star like Reeves as his thinly-veiled on-screen avatar further solidifies this feeble endeavour.

Reeves plays Reef Hawk, a former child star who’s gone on to become one of the most successful and beloved actors in Hollywood. But behind the scenes he’s painfully insecure, obsessed with the public’s perception of him – especially now that he’s five years sober after a crippling drug addiction – more than the opinions of his closest circle of friends, namely former high school chums Kyle (Cameron Diaz) and Xander (Matt Bomer). One day, however, he’s contacted by crisis lawyer Ira Slitz (Hill) who informs him that an anonymous figure is extorting Reef for a hefty amount, or else they’ll release a video of unknown content that’s said to be particularly damaging to his image. Reef is advised to seek out those who have a grudge against him and find out if they’re behind the scheme, but when the list turns out to be much longer than anticipated, he races to unmask the culprit before any damage is done to his career and reputation.

It’s easy, perhaps too much so, to see the parallels between the character of Reef and Hill himself, particularly their shared anxieties of being discarded from the fickle public eye on account of alleged past mistakes. Hill, however, seems to double down on not just his own self-proclaimed innocence, presenting Reef as squeaky-clean to a fault while nearly everyone else around him is almost obnoxiously scuzzy, but also the condemnation of how easy it is among powerful Hollywood figures and their ruthless PR teams to spin certain crises as positive reflections of their overall character. In true overblown satirical fashion, the film is far from subtle about the notion of favouring those who have fallen from grace, with the walls throughout the building in which Hill’s character operates being adorned with framed portraits of famously cancelled celebrities like Kevin Spacey and Kanye West, with the latter being used as an overt visual gag when the concept of anti-Semitism is brought up (which feels all too timely, given that this is coincidentally coming out the same week as the Wireless Festival being called off on account of headliner West’s denial of UK entry for his reprehensible comments).

Yet, it rarely feels as though anything of real value is being said. Hill and Woods’ script is far too scattershot in its commentary to land on anything specific, or even do anything different that other Hollywood-skewering satires – including Apple’s other, much sharper industry spoof The Studio – have already covered in much smarter ways. The madcap tone throughout makes it more confusing as to whether we’re meant to laugh at the wackiness or sympathise with these characters (my guess is that we’re probably not, but even still it’s rather hard to know for sure). It’s not even that much of a mystery as to who may be blackmailing Reef or what the contents of this supposedly career-destroying video, for both are revealed with such an anti-climactic thud that you’ll wonder if it was even worth centring a whole movie around things that appear to be easily resolved.

Most of all, it seems uncertain of what to do with a good chunk of the people who have agreed to take part, with Reeves – putting in one of his most emotionally versatile performances in years – left to coast on his on-screen likeability while the likes of Diaz and even Scorsese (the latter shining so brightly in a single scene that it makes you wonder why he doesn’t do as much acting as he does filmmaking) barely get enough time or space to flesh out their own characters. Meanwhile, you have Hill constantly mugging and playing up the comedy as this absolute caricature of a supporting player who quickly becomes grating, making it weird and even paradoxical that he’s made a covert vanity project wherein he’s also playing the most despicable character in this story.

Again, it’s hard to say if Hill is indeed culpable of his alleged misconduct, but Outcome doesn’t do him any favours as it largely comes across as a whiny, woe-is-me plea for support amid some very serious accusations that films like this attempt to trivialise in slightly heinous fashion.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Outcome is an oddly toothless Hollywood satire that largely functions as a self-serving mouthpiece for filmmaker Jonah Hill in response to personal allegations, wasting a talented cast on material that doesn’t know what to do with them, or even itself.