Out of Sight
Universal Pictures, 1998
Directed by Steven Soderbergh

$$$$

What if a Quentin Tarantino movie were made by somebody other than Quentin Tarantino? What if you took the quirky, movie-reference-spouting criminals and the 70s soundtrack; added usual Tarantino players like George Clooney, Ving Rhames, Michael Keaton and others, but gave the directorial reins to somebody with actual talent, somebody like, say Steven Soderbergh? The answer would be one heck of a movie, called Out of Sight.

Like Get Shorty and Tarantino's last effort, Jackie Brown, Out of Sight is based on a novel by Elmore Leonard. Out of Sight is far and away the best of the three. (All three films were produced by Danny DeVito's Jersey Films and Keaton, who played ATF agent Ray Nicolet in Jackie Brown, makes a cameo in the same role in Out of Sight.) Using a crackling script by Scott Frank, a funky score by David Holmes and fun freeze frames to keep the beat, Soderbergh makes a movie that grooves. The film has style. The film has rhythm. But it never stops being a movie. It never allows the audience to detach by drawing attention to itself.

Clooney plays a bank robber who breaks out of a South Florida prison, and ends up falling in love with the federal marshal who's pursuing him, played by Jennifer Lopez. There's a lot more to the plot of course, but I won't spoil it here. To say Lopez and Clooney have sizzling chemistry is an understatement. They're the sexiest screen couple Hollywood has seen in a long time. Lopez's beauty (gorgeously captured by cinematographer Elliot Davis) mixed with her character's vivid strength and smarts results in a performance that leaps off the screen. Clooney, as the cocky thief is more charismatic than ever, and for the first time, he's able to carry a film with confidence. Putting such an electric pair on opposite sides of the law makes for an irresistible set-up. And the movie makes it pay-off.

Don Cheadle, Steve Zahn and Albert Brooks are also excellent as other various criminal low-lifes. But the movie's resemblance to a Tarantino film goes beyond the collection of character types. Soderbergh also employs the favorite Tarantino technique of non-linear storytelling. The film bounces back and forth from flashback to present day. But Soderbergh does it in a way that's effortless and never confusing. It's a Tarantino film made better than Tarantino ever could.

(c) Copyright 1998