Review - Outcome

Starring Keanu Reeves, Jonah Hill, Cameron Diaz, Martin Scorsese. Written by Jonah Hill and Ezra Woods. Directed by Jonah Hill. Rated R. 83 minutes. Streaming on Apple TV.

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I remember when I first heard about Jeremy Renner’s snowplow accident. Not because I have any special attachment to the actor -- though he was friendly enough to me once at a “Hurt Locker” reception where there was a distinct possibility he had been overserved -- but on this less festive occasion I was sitting in the Brattle Theatre waiting for a movie to start, trying to read a crime novel while two college kids sitting behind me parsed the news on their phones.

“Jeremy Renner?” one said to the other with a curious tone, as if trying to decide how he should feel about the grisly story, “Is he canceled or is it just vibes?”

I think about that line a lot, as it perfectly encapsulates what’s left of so-called “cancel culture” in 2026. It could be argued that America’s post-Weinstein, #MeToo reckoning came to a definitive end when 75 million people voted to reelect an adjudicated rapist and friend of the world’s most notorious pedophile sex trafficker to a second term as President of the United States. But you’ll still see some folks fighting it out in various pockets of social media, like those Japanese islands where they didn’t know WWII had ended. (On Bluesky it’s 2017 forever.)

My crass and reductive appraisal of the current situation is that these days misconduct allegations are treated like steroid use in baseball, in that the stories only seem to matter when people don’t like you or your work. Much in the way that Roger Clemens is a dirty cheater but David Ortiz still walks on water, repertory houses regularly host sold-out screenings of “Chinatown” and “Rosemary’s Baby” while they and their audiences pat themselves on the back for boycotting Woody Allen. It’s all morally unserious, comically inconsistent and entirely vibes-based.

Jonah Hill has bad vibes.