# Out of Sight (1998)

### reviewed by
Ted Prigge

    OUT OF SIGHT (1998)
    A Film Review by Ted Prigge
    Copyright 1998 Ted Prigge

Director: Steven Soderbergh Writer: Scott Frank (based on the novel by Elmore Leonard) Starring: George Clooney, Jennifer Lopez, Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle, Steve Zahn, Albert Brooks, Dennis Farina, Catherine Keener, Isaiah Washington, Luis Guzmán, Nancy Allen, Donna Frenzel, Keith Loneker, Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson

There are two reasons why I just love to read and/or watch Elmore Leonard novels/adaptations: a) they're so unpredictable, and b) they have quite frankly the most interesting characters than anything that comes out today. The world of Elmore Leonard is filled with interesting characters of varying intelligence, who all at some point get to step into the foreground and mouth off to the audience. The plots are piloted only by them, and we read/watch with intensity, trying to follow the plethora of characters as they twist and turn the plot, never leaving us behind and never allowing us to predict what will happen next.

This is something that Hollywood isn't usually able to handle, but for some reason, the past three Leonard adaptations - "Get Shorty," "Jackie Brown," and this - are incredibly faithful not just to the plotting of the respective novels, but to their overall feel. In the past, reading and watching Leonard adaptations were totally different, but now, it's like Hollywood has had an epiphany: they've taken the time to read his novels, understand what makes them so compelling, and hire the right directors to create them in celluloid form.

If I had never seen "Get Shorty" or "Jackie Brown," I would have proclaimed "Out of Sight" the best and most fascinating Leonard adaptation. It fully understands the way that Leonard feels, allows each character to glow radiantly, develops some real depth to the film to connect to the audience, and even has an emotional core. It even has completely amazing performances, and turns its two leads, who have both had a bit of trouble connecting to audiences in the past, into great Hollywood stars in the tradition of Bogart and Bacall or Tracy and Hepburn (or even Allen and Keaton). Is it substantially weaker than the other two films? No way; it's right up there with them.

The protagonists of "Out of Sight" are one bank robber and one Federal Marshall. Jack Foley (George Clooney, growing his old hair back and ditching the old school-Doug Ross stuff...not that that was a bad thing) is the crook who, in the first unrelated-to-everything-else scene robs a bank in the most laid back (not to mention most hilarious since Woody Allen tried to rob a bank in "Take the Money and Run") robbery scene in history by merely telling the teller that a man sitting at a desk with her boss is his partner. Unfortunately, his car stalls and he winds up in prison.

Shortly thereafter, the escapes with a little snitching and help from his friend and assistant, Buddy Bragg (Ving Rhames, still glowing). But in the process, he manages to kidnap a tough Federal Marshall dressed in a Chanel dress, Karen Sisco (Jennifer Lopez), the other main protagonist. He stuffs himself in the trunk with her, and on the way to a rendezvous, chats up with her about, of all things, the career of Faye Dunaway, discussing "Bonnie and Clyde," "Network," and "Three Days of the Condor." He lets her go and all, but the two both have an attraction and obsession with one another.

The obsession grows as Jack and Buddy team up with a vicious criminal he knew from prison, Maurice "Snoopy" Miller (Don Cheadle, showing off his versatility as an actor once again), to do a job on a sleazy billionaire they also knew from prison, Richard Ripley (a balding Albert Brooks - so that WAS a toupee!), who squealed that he had a collection of uncut diamonds somewhere in his mansion. Meanwhile, the FBI is trying to track Jack down with the help of Karen, who can't decide if she wants to catch him because he's a crook or because she's totally attracted to him.

The film was directed by Steven Soderbergh, who hit the big time back about a decade ago with the film that launched the craze for independent films, "sex, lies, and videotape," but has had a rough time making movies since. Instead of playing it for laughs like Barry Sonnenfeld did with "Get Shorty," or playing it straight like Quentin Tarantino did with "Jackie Brown," Soderbergh directs it with a masterful touch of emotional and psychological depth. He freezes frames at key moments, intercuts two scenes to form one, and uses the humor as a break from the intensity of the rest of the film. The screenplay by Scott Frank (of "Dead Again" fame) is as complex as Soderbergh's direction: he forms the plot so that the film plays in often non-linear form, throwing in unanounced flashbacks so that much of the film plays as a series of memories and thoughts of respective characters. This is done so much that when one scene which is shot in a dream-like state arrives, I wasn't sure if it was real or not.

This is easily the most deep of the Leonard adaptations because while "Get Shorty" was a satire on Hollywood and "Jackie Brown" was just a psychological caper film, "Out of Sight" actually connects to the audience. The two protagonists are easily likable, and their obsession with one another is the driving force of the film. We care about these two, and we see that their relationship is really a tragedy: they're torn between their love for one another and the boundaries of what they are. In effect, the film actually says more about the relationship between cops and robbers than "Heat" did, and just as an added cherry, the scene where the two characters take a break and sit down for a drink, which was the most hyped-up (not to mention the most anticlimactic) scene of the film, is twenty times better.

The film's basically a battle between what people do for a living and what they really could be, a battle between a romance film and a pulpy thriller. We have a joyously fun caper film here with all the right ingredients (double crosses upon double crosses, trigger-happy characters, rich asswholes getting their just deserts, and even some irony), but we also have a wonderful love story, easily the best of the Leonard adaptions (the ones in "Get Shorty" and "Jackie Brown" were more sweet than this is), and acted with just the right amount of sexual chemistry by Clooney and Lopez. These two characters have only three or four scenes together, but when they talk, you just hold your breath in case something amazing happens. And it does.

And of course, there are those little things that you have to love about this film, like the two big shock cameos that pop up (one a tie-in with "Jackie Brown"), that gory death towards the end which is the funniest one of those since the head shot in "Pulp Fiction," the opening bank robbery scene, the opening of the safe in Brooks' house, and two hilarious supporting roles by Tom DiCillo's wife, Catherine Keener, and Steve Zahn as a stoner "colleague" of Jack's, who shows to mainstream audiences the knack for comedy he has shown in other smaller films. There's nary a dull moment or character in an Elmore Leonard novel, and it's amazing that a film based on one of his novels has realized how to appropriately connect two characters emotionally with their audience.

    MY RATING (out of 4): ****

Homepage at: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/8335/

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