Movies…with a little bit of obscure culture and sports mixed in
“A career bank robber breaks out of jail, and shares a moment of mutual attraction with a U.S. Marshal he has kidnapped.” Director: Steven SoderberghWriters: Elmore Leonard, Scott FrankStaring: George […]
“A career bank robber breaks out of jail, and shares a moment of mutual attraction with a U.S. Marshal he has kidnapped.”
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Writers: Elmore Leonard, Scott Frank
Staring: George Clooney, Jennifer Lopez, Ving Rhames, Steve Zahn, Don Cheadle
Release Date: June 26, 1998
IMDB
Out Of Sight (1998) is a Steve Soderbergh joint where he takes the tried and true path of putting two very attractive people together in a movie. Imagine you are living in the late 1990s and you see Goerge Clooney and Jennifer Lopez on the poster. Are you going to be curious about that movie? You betcha.
Out Of Sight is a comedy crime caper that thrives when its stars are sharing longing, tension filled looks with one another. Clooney is allowed to show off his comedic timing with Ving Rhames being his straight man counterpart. Lopez is encouraged to look beautiful and be smitten by a criminal she is meant to catch rather than romantically pursue. More importantly is to the chemistry between Clooney and Lopez are the traits of the characters they play.
Clooney plays the role of career bank robber Jack Foley. We meet him as he is breaking out of prison with the help of his buddy, Buddy Bragg (Ving Rhames). Jennifer Lopez plays the part of Karen Sisco, the career-driven cop who ends up as the feline in this flirtatious game of cat and mouse.
Foley is a detail driven man set on his own ambitions and his own survival. He is inherently a tad bit selfish being that his main motivation for the majority of his life is ill-gotten money. The script flips when he meets Sisco, kidnaps her, and becomes infatuated with her. He is on the run, but part of him would love to get caught.
Sisco is a woman in a man’s game and the apprehension of Foley would lead to positive professional developments. She has no interest in men in a friendly way; she looks at men as an obstacle to get over. But when Foley starts smoothly talking to her in the trunk, something new tickles Sisco’s heart. She is chasing Foley for her job, but part of her hopes she never catches up because then she is going to need to make a choice she doesn’t want to make.
All of this works well. Steven Soderbergh places the ultimate success of Out Of Sight on his stars’ shoulders and it works well to bring the movie up to immediately passable levels. There are more things to Out Of Sight besides George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez, and to those we venture now.
After watching Out Of Sight, I found it a bit shocking that the film was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 1999 Academy Awards. Do not get me wrong. The dialogue is often crisp and filled with sly fervor, but the banter overpowers the story on almost every level. Yes, I concede that the love game between Foley and Sisco is more important than the background story of robbing jewels and staying out of prison. But the weight of the see-saw is too skewed to the kindling lovers. It is an 80-20 split, and that makes the climax of the movie (which doesn’t have a ton of Sisco in it) feel a bit lackluster.
How does an ending with gun fire fall softly? A lot of the ending sequence’s meaning falls on Foley doing something he has never done before, but doing it for the right reason. It raises the idea of morales, and that can be traced by Sisco who is betraying some of her morals by falling for Foley. It all comes full circle when she bursts through the doors and is forced to make the choice she has been dreading the entire time. Yes, the story comes full circle with some of its themes, but the circle is not symmetrical. The orbit of the Soderbergh’s adaption is rather ovalish, swelling at parts and shrinking at others. The radius of care for all areas of Out Of Sight ebbs and flows as does its watchability.
Rather than ending on a bummer of a thought, let’s ride off into the sunset with my favorite scene from Soderbergh’s movie.
This bar scene crackles. It simmers. It is the epitome of the teapot wheezing before the eventual scream. Sisco has already turned down some fellas who think they are hot shit so you it’s going down when Foley comes up looking suave as hell with an air of slight vulnerability. The insertion of compliments, flutter of deep thoughts, and prodding of deep desire is a concoction of heart pumping curiosity. Lopez has the shy look down to a tee. I don’t know how Clooney could even go on with this scene. I guess you need to be one of the most charismatic and attractive men to ever grace the silver screen? Luckily Clooney has that.
Out Of Sight fell short of my lofty expectations, but that doesn’t mean that it is a bad movie by any means. Soderbergh plants and flowers a sizzling on screen romantic relationship. Its aroma is so strong that it covers up some of the flaws in the actual story that could have been fixed. But again, Clooney and Lopez have fantastic passion for one another and that raises the floor of the movie past some of the broken rungs.
As of late July 2023, Out Of Sight is streaming on Peacock.
STANKO RATING: C+
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