Director: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: George Clooney,Jennifer Lopez
This could very well be the coolest movie ever made.
Steven Soderbergh is certainly a cool director. He messes with the
chronology, his shots are totally stylish, and best of all, his casts always
deliver great performances.
For instance, George Clooney always seems kind of TV to me. He doesn't have
that "big screen" charm, as far as I'm concerned. But in this movie,
as Jack Foley, he's just charming enough. He's a bank robber who's robbed more
banks than anyone in history, but never uses a gun, just his brains and a smile.
In other words, he's gotta be inconspicuous, but likeable, like a… hey! like a
television star!
He's paired up with Jennifer Lopez as a sexy Federal Marshall named Karen
Sisco, the kind of girl whose father gives her a gun as a birthday present. (Who
would have thought she would end up a gun-toting moll in real life?) Clooney and
Lopez make a great on-screen couple with more chemistry than most newlyweds.
The story: he takes advantage of an organized jail break to break out of
prison himself. She happens to be in his way. He disarms her, and locks himself
in the trunk of her car with her as his buddy drives them away. They chat in the
trunk. From there on out, he's out to make another score and she's out to track
him down. But whether she wants to regain the honor she lost by letting him get
away the first time, or whether she just wants to sit on his stubbly face, is
not clear.
These two are very good actors. And they are surrounded by a dozen great
actors in perfectly written character roles. The story, by the way, is by Elmore
Leonard, and Michael Keaton shows up as his character from Jackie Brown,
another Leonard adaptation. In the mix, we've got Ving Rhames as Jack's buddy,
who can't seem stop confessing all his crimes to his sister, the amazing Don
Cheadle as another crook who wants to cut in on Jack's robbery, Albert Brooks as
the chump who everyone wants to rob, Catherine Keener as Jack's ex-wife, a
magician's assistant, Steve Zahn as Jack's stoner friend who messes up his
prison break. How does this all fit together? Perfectly.
This movie also boasts one of the best soundtracks of the late 90s. David
Holmes is a bass and drums master DJ who keeps the movie going with a funky
undercurrent that makes you want to dance. The vibe is a simmering, low-key vibe
that is sexy in the best, cool jazz way. It's music that can bridge classic 70s
funk like the Isley Brother's “Fight the Power,” and early riff-rich Herbie
Hancock, with end of the millennium grooviness.
Out of Sight is more stylish than slick, more sly than smart, and more
seductive than sexy. In other words, it's an intelligent charmer, like Jack
Foley.
