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Modern crime capers don’t get much better than Steven Soderbergh’s slick take on Elmore Leonard’s Out of Sight. Always a dazzler with rich material, Soderbergh has a wonderful habit of giving his audiences exactly what they want: style and substance. Out of Sight, originally released in 1998, is no different. Offering a little unexpected violence and a lot of criminally cool sexiness, Out of Sight tells a stunning whopper of larger-than-life cons inside a wicked chase of cops and robbers hellbent on playing traditional cat and mouse games with each other.
Jack Foley (George Clooney before perfecting the role of Danny Ocean) really needed to learn to keep the car running during bank robberies. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been thrown in Glades Penitentiary. As a career criminal, he doesn’t plan to stay long and plans a detailed escape involving an unsuspecting U.S. Marshal named Karen Sisco (Jennifer Lopez) and his outside friend, Buddy Bragg (Ving Rhames).
The two – Jack and Karen – share a too close for comfort ride in the trunk of a car and share a bit of personal backstory with each other. Foley’s escape goes well enough, but he’s stung a bit by Karen’s cool wit and smoldering looks and can’t seem to shake her or her knowledge of Three Days of the Condor – even if she enjoys firing her gun at Foley and his cohorts, including dim-witted Glen Michaels (Steven Zahn).
Suddenly, the film shifts into a two year flashback in which the remaining characters – uber violent Maurice Miller (Don Cheadle) and a rich man Richard Ripley (Albert Brooks) are introduced in yet another penitentiary inhabited by Foley’s three-man crew. Turns out, all gangs are working to clear Ripley of his prized collection of uncut diamonds – all while being pursued by Karen. For Foley, it’s all fun and games until someone literally gets shot.
Keeping the dialogue cool and crisp, the screenplay – adapted from Leonard’s book of the same name by Scott Frank – is a burst of inspired vision both in characterization and concentration. Doubling over itself with sweeps of romance and cat-and-mouse antics, there’s little to beef with concerning this potboiler’s series of events. This is the film that launched Clooney’s career (because he’s downright perfect in the performance of a love-struck criminal) and made Lopez believable as a pop singer turned actress.
The film is also notable as being Soderbergh’s attempt at mainstream Hollywood and what a turn it was: from Art House to Main Street. Yet, Soderbergh’s style remains intact and adds to the general involvedness of the script, the characters, and the winding exploits of the film. Elliot Davis handles the camera this time out, but this is pure Soderbergh formula. Soft lens, panning zooms, and general quirkiness run overtime and make for a thoughtful and fun film.
Out of Sight is blistering cool and, for those who know their Tarantino, sees Michael Keaton returning for a brief cameo in the same role he did in Jackie Brown.
MPAA Rating: R for language and some strong violence.
