Intro
Out of Sight (1998)
Once again, I am watching all of Steven Soderbergh movies out of order. This is a practical matter as not all of his movies are currently available to me, but I decided to make the most of it and get creative with how I watched his movies. I have a method for how I'm picking his movies, but it's mostly just random, so no need to explain my choices.
When I watched Out of Sight, two movies immediately came to mind. The first is Get Shorty, the 1995 movie that predates this. The comparison makes more sense when you see who is behind the movie. For starters, both movies are based off an Elmore Leonard novel so both have complicated plots, inept criminals, and one man above the fray with a love interest already in a relationship. Leonard pretty much believes criminals are criminals for a reason and that they will fuck up their plans by their own doing. You see that here.
The screenplay was also written by the same guy, Scott Franks. Franks appears to be a very good writer, with an unorthodox amount of well-reviewed movies in his resume. He does have the good fortune of working with good directors. He's worked with Kenneth Branaugh, Steven Spielberg, and James Mangold in addition to Soderbergh. It's possible his movies are good because of the directors but the directors also picked his screenplays. His lone writing-directing effort appears to be a solid movie so I'm inclined to call him a good writer. The movie was also produced by Danny Devito, who starred in Get Shorty, and Barry Sonnenfield, who directed it. (Both produced Get Shorty too) So it's not exactly a comparison I make that comes out of left field.
The other movie that came to mind was Ocean's Eleven. This movie almost seemed like a warmup to me. Now I'm just going by memory, but it seems to me that Ocean's Eleven is a much more polished bank story than Out of Sight. Here he seems slightly restrained by the tone of Get Shorty. That's not a bad thing. I loved Get Shorty and it mimicked the same tone really well. But it did sort of have the effect that I was watching a lesser Get Shorty and a less fun Ocean's Eleven. The latter is not fair at all since it came after this movie I admit.
Obviously the main culprit behind the Ocean Eleven comparison is Clooney. He plays virtually the same character in both movies. Once again, this seems like more of a warmup to Danny Ocean to me. Clooney had perfected this style by Ocean's Eleven. He's far from bad in Out of Sight though. He goes a long way towards justifying a marshal's decision to essentially forget her duties for him for at least a night. Don Cheadle is also in this movie, but he definitely plays a different character. Here he's kind of a stereotype - he's even got a Tupac style bandana on his head when in prison - and in Ocean's, I don't know he's French or something. I'm really not sure what with the accent he chose to go with for that movie.
The cast is pretty incredible including a surprisingly effective turn by Jennifer Lopez. I say surprising because I didn't think she was all that good of an actress - in fact when I've stumbled on this movie before I turned it off because I didn't imagine it was good mostly because she was in it. I am admittedly not basing this off a large sample of movies I've seen in her, but when you form an impression, it's not always fair. It's also surprising because if you'd describe Karen Sisco as a character to me, Lopez is pretty fucking far from how I'd imagine her. Carlo Gugino, who later played her in a quickly cancelled TV series called Karen Sisco, is more what I would have imagined. (It actually kind of seems like near perfect casting. Too bad it got cancelled so quickly)
Clooney and Cheadle are both as great as they usually are, even if they spur in me images of what I think is a better movie. (Kind of argue to argue Cheadle is better in Ocean's just for that accent, but Clooney is definitely at his best in Ocean's so it's not a comparison that favors this movie). This is just a movie with a bunch of solid performances from people who usually give them. Ving Rhames, Catherine Keener, Dennis Farina, and Steve Zahn all play their parts with their usual talent. I have to confess I didn't recognize Albert Brooks until halfway through the movie which is kind of incredible since it's Albert Brooks! So I'd say he disappeared in the role (that could just be me of course).
I hate to keep giving every movie of Soderbergh's the same grade, but my main complaint of "it's not as good as two other movies I absolutely love" is not really a complaint, so much as an acknowledgement that it's not going to get the perfect grade. Three movies, 3 stars for all of them.
3 stars out of 4
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