Dougray Scott's Baffling American Accent Is the Real Star of Netflix's 'Exterritorial'

The thing about Taco Bell is that the fast-food chain really only uses about 12 to 15 ingredients. Every “new” menu item is just a remix of the same elements. A Crunchwrap Supreme? It’s basically a taco grilled inside a burrito. A Mexican Pizza? That’s two corn tortilla quesadillas stacked on top of each other. A Chalupa and a Gordita? Identical, except the Chalupa’s flatbread is fried instead of grilled.

Netflix’s action movie factory works exactly the same way. The ingredients never change; they just keep tossing them together in slightly different combos. Carry-On is Die Hard in an airport. Extraction is Man on Fire meets John Wick. The Gray Man is Jason Bourne plus Mission: Impossible (and a swift kick to the head).

Their latest, Exterritorial, feels like the algorithm landed on “Die Hard in a consulate” with a dash of Taken. It’s a cheap, forgettable mash-up that’s oddly perfect for Netflix. Unlike the platform’s usual Mark Wahlberg or Gerard Butler vehicles, this one didn’t even require a hefty licensing fee to be just okay.

Exterritorial stars German actress Jeanne Goursaud as Sara Wulf, a former special forces soldier still haunted by a mission gone wrong that killed eight soldiers, including her son’s father, leaving her the only survivor. Seven years later, she visits the U.S. consulate in Germany to apply for a work visa. While she’s grabbing a drink from a vending machine, her six-year-old son vanishes from the playroom.

The villain is Regional Security Officer Eric Kynch, played by Dougray Scott. We immediately know he’s the villain because he gaslights Sara (who suffers from PTSD) by insisting she arrived alone. It’s almost clear that his character has something to do with the botched military mission because he’s the bad guy, and it’s the only thing we know about Sara’s past. Ipso facto.

Scott is actually the best part of the movie, not because he’s good, but because in switching between English and German, the Scottish actor — like many others trying to immitate an American accent — lands on one of those wild, inexplicable Southern American accents that sounds like Jason Isaacs in The White Lotus. And no, it doesn’t seem intentional.

From there, things unfold exactly how you’d expect. Sara is trapped inside the consulate, denied help, and told her son never existed. So she does what any action hero with nothing to lose does: goes full Liam Neeson on the consulate’s staff, dispatching henchmen until she gets her kid back and Dougray Scott is Dougray’d.

Directed by Christian Zübert, Exterritorial isn’t good, but it is watchable. The fight scenes try to channel The Raid, if The Raid had suffered severe brain damage. The choreography feels like it’s been infected by RFK Jr.’s brainworm. You’ll also see every plot twist coming from a mile away, except for Dougray Scott’s baffling accent, which remains a recurring jump scare.

Ultimately, Exterritorial is the Taco Bell of action thrillers: barely satisfying, but cheap, accessible, and almost tasty. It’s sitting at #1 on Netflix’s movie chart, right above Twilight, and the best thing about it is that, unlike Taco Bell, you won’t be haunted by it a few hours after consumption.