The film is based on the book The Heritage of Michael Flaherty by Colin Leinster, and details the fictional experience of an idealistic Irish-American who travels to Ireland and joins the IRA in the 1970s.

[5] The film caused a minor scandal where government officials were outraged at a scene that showed a British officer participating in the torture of a partially blind Irish Catholic prisoner.

[9][5] New York magazine praised the direction "his skill at realistically conveying the terrible waste of the civil strife in Northern Ireland and the chilling day-to-day acceptance of violence as a way of life there.

"[9] Stepan O'Fetchit said "At the other extreme, modern-dress movies like Tony Luraschi's The Outsider... purport to present a real, contemporary Ireland while effectively reducing it to a traffic snarl-up of faceless ideologues wielding guns, balaclavas, and gritty one-liners.

"[12] Variety called it a "thoughtful terrorism drama" but felt that the "lack of concession on the part of director-scripter Tony Luraschi to conventional thriller pacing makes the Paramount-financed production no easy moneyspinner.