--- title: "Netflix’s ‘Outside The Wire’ brings us a militarized ‘Six Million Dollar Man’ for the GWOT era" description: "The trailer for a new sci-fi military action flick, 'Outside The Wire,' just dropped and has Anthony Mackie as a super-soldier android" date: "2020-12-15" modified: "2020-12-15" authors: - name: "James Clark" job_title: "Editor-in-Chief" link: "https://taskandpurpose.com/authors/james-clark/" url: "https://taskandpurpose.com/culture/netflix-outside-the-wire-trailer/" categories: - "Culture" - "Entertainment" --- # Netflix’s ‘Outside The Wire’ brings us a militarized ‘Six Million Dollar Man’ for the GWOT era ![]() In *Outside The Wire*, an upcoming Netflix action flick set in the near future, a young soldier finds himself paired off with a cybernetically enhanced super-soldier and tasked with stopping a nebulous insurgency from getting its hands on a doomsday device. Directed by Mikael Håfström, the upcoming action flick stars Damson Idris as Leo, an Air Force first lieutenant who finds himself under the command of Leo, an android — and a captain, as he's quick to point out — played by Anthony Mackie. The pair embark on a dangerous mission to, well, it's unclear. It has something to do with bad guys and high-tech weapons, but really, I don't think the plot is the selling point here. *Outside The Wire* is all about the action, as made evident by the movie's recently released trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwYhA5YvdNc&feature=emb_title In the short promo we see Mackie's android tear through enemies with his fists, feet, and firearms — really, you name it and he'll find a way to beat you to death with it. The action-packed trailer is quick to point out that the film is brought to viewers by the same folks behind the *[Extraction]()* and *[The Old Guard](),* two recent Netflix action movies that put a premium on hyper-stylized violence and gun-fu to rival that of the *John Wick* franchise. As far as Mackie's android captain is concerned, *Outside The Wire* seems intent on putting a post-9/11 spin on the time-worn trope of the bionic man. The teaser alludes to this when actor Michael Kelly remarks that Mackie's android is "stronger, faster, smarter," a thinly veiled reference to a famous quote from the 1970s television series *The Six Million Dollar Man*: "We can rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better than he was. Better, stronger, faster." Mackie is no stranger to playing superheroic — yet somehow relatable — military veterans. As Sam Wilson, aka The Falcon, Mackie managed to put a believable post-9/11 spin on the Marvel superhero's military service when he was introduced in *Winter Soldier* as a Global War on Terrorism-era veteran, now working as a counselor at the Department of Veterans Affairs. The scene where Falcon and "Cap" chat after a meeting and commiserate about the little things that change following military service and war, is a rare moment of emotional authenticity in a genre that for a long time seemed to use a character's time in uniform as little more than a justification for why they were good at fighting or shooting things. Between the militaristic near-future setting we can catch a glimpse of in the trailer and the action-oriented team behind the film — not to mention Mackie's acting chops — I'm holding out hope that *Outside The Wire* will make for some decent junk-food-for-the-brain viewing when it premieres on Jan. 15. And hey, if it's a bust, then it's just 114 minutes of your life lost — and, at the least, no additional money out of your pocket seeing as it's already on Netflix. ## Author James Clark is the editor-in-chief of Task & Purpose. He is a former Marine and a veteran of the War in Afghanistan. ### Author social links [Twitter]() [LinkedIn]()