''Inside Out'' is a 2011 American

crime film Crime film is a film belonging to the crime fiction genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and fiction. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine with many other genres, such as Drama (film and television), dr ...

directed by Artie Mandelberg. The film features professional wrestler

Triple H Paul Michael Levesque (; born July 27, 1969), also known by the ring name Triple H, is an American business executive and former professional wrestler. He is signed to WWE, where he serves as its chief content officer. Levesque began his wres ...

(credited as Paul "Triple H" Levesque),

Michael Rapaport Michael David Rapaport (born March 20, 1970) is an American actor, comedian, and podcast host. Beginning his career in the early 1990s, he has made over 100 appearances in film and television. His film roles include ''Zebrahead'' (1992), '' ...

Parker Posey Parker Christian Posey (born November 8, 1968) is an American actress. Known for playing eccentric characters in independent films, she was named "Queen of the Indies" by ''Time'' in 1997. She has received nominations for a Primetime Emmy Awa ...

Julie White Julie K. White (born June 4, 1961) is an American actress. She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance in '' The Little Dog Laughed'' in 2007. She has also received three other Tony Award nominations for her performan ...

Michael Cudlitz Michael Cudlitz (born December 29, 1964) is an American actor known for portraying John Cooper in the NBC/ TNT drama series '' Southland'' for which he won the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2 ...

and

Bruce Dern Bruce MacLeish Dern (born June 4, 1936) is an American actor. He has received several accolades, including the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor and the Silver Bear for Best Actor. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Suppo ...

. The project was the cinematic feature film debut for director Artie Mandelberg. The film was released on September 9, 2011.

Plot

A.J., an ex-con who served 13 years in

Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...

for manslaughter, returns home to

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

and fights to protect the woman he loves and her young daughter from his dangerous former best friend. In better times, AJ (Triple H) would have done anything to protect his best friend, Jack (Michael Rapaport), a two-bit gangster and the son of Dr. Vic (Bruce Dern) -- the city's toughest crime boss. While A.J. is in prison, Jack marries Claire (Parker Posey), the love of AJ's life, and together they raise a daughter, Pepper (Juliette Goglia). Pepper is A.J.'s daughter, a fact known to Jack, but Jack pretends to be her biological father. The day Jack picks up AJ from prison, the short-fused thug gets an itchy trigger finger that could land his buddy right back behind bars. The situation grows increasingly tense as Dr. Vic attempts to handle the situation quietly as he comes under investigation by the Louisiana Tax Board agent Martha (Julie White) for dealing in untaxed cigarettes. When Jack flees and Dr. Vic decides that the only way to get the job done right is to do it himself, A.J. realizes that Claire and Pepper are in mortal danger, and races to their rescue.

Cast

Reception

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 25% based on 12 reviews, with an average rating of 2.66/10. On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 28 out of 100, based on 8 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews. Writing for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', Daniel M. Gold described the plot as "a tangle of dithering storylines" and Levesque's acting as "inert". The However, Eric Hynes of ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first Alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, ...

'' was more positive, praising the film as a "meandering, eccentric, downright adorable existential crime yarn", while noting that Levesque's performance was closer to "a steroidal

Steven Seagal Steven Frederic Seagal ( ; born April 10, 1952) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter, martial artist, and musician. A 7th-Dan (rank), dan Black belt (martial arts), black belt in aikido, he began his adult life as a martial arts instru ...

" than " Hackman or Cagney".

References

External links

* * * {{WWE Studios 2011 films 2011 crime drama films 2011 directorial debut films 2010s American films 2010s English-language films American crime drama films English-language crime drama films Films set in New Orleans Films shot in New Orleans WWE Studios films