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8/17/2021

Out of Sight (1998) - Clooney and Lopez burn up the screen in Soderbergh's crime comedy


+ Best Crime-Comedy of the Year + Best Erotic Movie of the Year


High-contrasted, primary-colored, cool throw-back exploitation-style poster for Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight

A serial bank robber winds up in a Florida prison, but he breaks out with a new scheme to rob a rich inmate, - a plan which gets complicated when he falls for an FBI agent, whom he shares a trunk with for a period, as well as the company of some bad characters...

 

Out of Sight is written by Scott Frank (Marley & Me (2008)), adapting the same-titled 1996 novel by Elmore Leonard (Stick (1985)) and directed by Georgian master filmmaker Steven Soderbergh (Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989)), whose 7th feature it is.

It is an enthusiastic, typically 1990s 'smart', (for lack of a better word), film, meaning that it's laced with ironic dialog and advanced chronology. It is also a star-making feature for George Clooney (Michael Clayton (2007)), who exudes sexy ruggedness, a hearty lead for the film that isn't big on teeth and has a penchant for boorish fatalism, - but is partnered up with Jennifer Lopez (Anaconda (1997)), who is equally sexy and bad-ass to boot here. Lopez has the film's best scenes. Soderbergh cultivates their chemistry and the sexiness of the pair with snowfall and love-making scenes, which is the brand of Out of Sight.

It has, however, a large cast of energetic charlatans; Dennis Farino (That Old Feeling (1997)), Michael Keaton (Jackie Brown (1997)), Luis Guzman (Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012)), Steve Zahn (Night Train (2009)), Don Cheadle (Things Behind the Sun (2001)), Isaiah Washington (Dead Birds (2004)), Albert Brooks (Taxi Driver (1976)) and more. Soderbergh, stylishly assured as is his normalcy, uses freeze-frame, zoom and other filmmaking grips coolly, and locations are also utilized for the underlining of Soderbergh as a technical master craftsman. Some feel that Out of Sight could use some action, and there may be something to that reservation, as the film can come of as somewhat sly. - I enjoyed it nevertheless.

 

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Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 48 mil. $

Box office: 77.7 mil. $

= Big flop (returned 1.61 times its cost)

[Out of Sight was released 26 June (USA) and runs 123 minutes. Clooney was paid 10 mil. $ for his performance; Lopez 2 mil. $. Shooting took place from October 1997 - January 1998 in Louisiana, Michigan, including in Detroit, Florida and in California, including in Los Angeles. The film opened #4, behind fellow new release Doctor Dolittle and hold-over hits Mulan and The X Files, to a 12 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another weekend in the top 5 (#4) and grossed 37.5 mil. $ (48.3 % of the total gross). The film was nominated for 2 Oscars: Best Adapted Screenplay, lost to Bill Condon for Gods and Monsters, and Editing, lost to Saving Private Ryan. Roger Ebert gave it a 3.5/4 star review, translating to a notch higher than this one. Soderbergh returned with The Limey (1999). Clooney returned in The Thin Red Line (1998); Lopez with a voice performance in Antz (1998), in 6 music videos and physically in a theater in The Cell (2000). Out of Sight is certified fresh at 93 % with a 7.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]


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