Customer Reviews

Out of Sight [HD DVD]

5 star:		(162)
4 star:		(45)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

George Clooney stars with Jennifer Lopez in this excellent and entertaining romantic heist movie, unfortunately much overlooked and poorly promoted on its theatrical release. Based on the novel by Elmore Leonard and superbly and subtly directed by Steven Soderbergh. George Clooney (as bank robber Jack Foley) and Jennifer Lopez (as Federal Marshall Karen Sisco) light up the screen with previously unparalleled sexual chemistry in the movie that finally launched their big screen careers to the A list, after previous false starts (such as The Peacemaker and The Money Train respectively). Also boasting a very impressive supporting cast that includes Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle, Steve Zahn, Albert Brooks, Dennis Farina (as Jennifer Lopez father) and great cameos from Michael Keaton and Samuel L. Jackson, movies really don't get much better than this.

Principally this is the story of serial bank robber Jack Foley and Federal Marshall Karen Sisco, on opposite sides of the law but inescapably attracted to each other. When Jack escapes from prison aided by his friend Buddy (Rhames) he ends up in the trunk of a car with the kidnapped Karen Sisco (Lopez) after she nearly foils the prison break. However, thanks to their inept friend Glenn Michaels (Zahn), Karen escapes and Jack and Buddy have to go on the run. Meanwhile, Karen Sisco is hot on Jack's trail in more ways than one in this brilliantly played, beautifully written, excellently directed movie. This has everything I love about movies, a great story, great cast and great style. Truly unmissable and well worthy of five stars.

When I finally got my DVD player this was the first one I bought. Why? Because not only is the film spectacular but this DVD has a host of fabulous extras that very few DVD's can match. The story and characters are all well thought out and I never felt that this film made a misstep. I never write reviews for these kinds of things but I read that one person felt that this film was unoriginal and I just had to say my piece. If anything this film is completely original. I am a film major and have been in school studying film for almost four years, trust me when I say this film is deserving of its praise and it has a lot of it.

Out Of Sight is yet another movie based on an Elmore Leonard book. Mr. Leonard's books are always full of colorful characters and sharp dialogue and unfortunately that many times doesn't transfer to the screen. This movie is another story. Steven Soderbergh has taken the true spirit of the book and captured it in this movie. The movie is interspersed with flashbacks and this allows us to see how characters got to certain points in the film. The film revolves around bank robber Jack Foley (George Clooney) and FBI agent Karen Sisco (Jennifer Lopez). Foley breaks out of a Florida prison and comes into contact with Karen as his accomplices hijack her and her car. She and Foley are put in the truck and the conversation between the two of them is scintillating. They let her go unharmed and she is on the case tracking him, but she finds that she has feelings for him. There are some great plot twists that I won't give away and the movie ends in surprising fashion. This movie showed that George Clooney had big screen star potential as his understated, cool persona is perfect for this role. Jennifer Lopez burns up the screen with sexy charm. The supporting players include the always solid Ving Rhames, a sinister Don Cheadle and a hysterical Steven Zahn. Out Of Sight is a fast-paced, well-crafted and completely entertaining movie.

Out of Sight, wow. What a movie, it literally blew me away. Steven Soderbergh is such a great director, if I were Elmore Leonard I wouldn't have trusted anyone else to handle it. And Scott Frank, what can I say? His writing speaks for itself, quite literally. George Clooney was as cool as the steel edge of a magnum .357. He could have put both Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin to shame with one quick glance. And by his side? The slinky, ever-sexy Jennifer Lopez. She melts the screen and everyone that stands or sits around her. Her character was Mickey Spillane's wet dream. Steve McQueen and Faye Dunnaway once turned a chess game into a steamy, erotic rendevous in the Thomas Crown Affair. Clooney and Lopez do a little bit of history repeating, this time in her trunk. One a bank robber who has just escaped from Glades Prison in Florida and is greased in mud and sweat. The other a U.S. Marshall packing a shotgun and a .38 snuggly planted on her thigh. The combination of the two is explosive. This film is a must see. What more is there to say, it's the next best thing to perfection. Watch it and love it! Just don't get burned by the fireworks!

Others have already commented on the movie itself (which was voted the best movie of '98 by the National Society of Film Critics, beating, among others, Saving Private Ryan), so I'll skip that and move on to the DVD Collector's edition: it's by far the best DVD I've seen. The picture and sound quality are excellent, and there are some great extras: there's a short "Inside Out of Sight" featurette, which is okay, but the real gems are the commentary by the director and screenwriter, and the deleted scenes (22 minutes worth). Among the scenes included in the deleted scenes: the original one-take version of the trunk scene, an entertaining scene with Ving Rhames and George Clooney discussing, among other things, wine and lilic-scented bath oil, and great scenes between Karen (Jennifer Lopez) and her father as well as an extended (and very insightful) scene between Karen and Adele (Clooney's ex-wife in the movie). There's also a different (and much more graphic) version of the Detroit meeting between Karen and Raymond Cruz. If you love this movie in its original form, the collector's edition DVD is worth it for the deleted scenes alone. You'll get a lot out of them.

Other goodies: a nice theatrical trailer, and production and technical notes. This is what DVDs are all about.

I walked out of "Out of Sight" dumbfounded. What a great movie! And yet it bombed at the box office. What a world . . . I enjoyed every moment of "Out of Sight"- from the music, to the acting, to the story, to the direction. Based on a novel by the same title by Elmore Leonard, "Out of Sight" is part heist film, part love story.

George Clooney has been mocked for leaving "ER", probably unfairly. Okay, so his choice of roles has been pretty much awful ("From Dusk 'Til Dawn", "Batman & Robin", "The Peacemaker"), but here he finally gets good material to work from and turns in a magnificent performance. Dare I say it? It's an Oscar-caliber performance. As Jack Foley he underplays the role to perfection. Clooney is cool, calm and totally in control. Great job.

I didn't much care for Jennifer Lopez's Karen Sisco, but Ving Rhames fans will be delighted to see him in a wonderful supporting role as Clooney's friend and confidant Buddy. Rhames is a great actor who doesn't get his due often enough.

Another big surprise is Don Cheadle's performance as Snoopy. He's a terrific villain: angry, threatening, unpredictable. Along with Rhames, Cheadle is a great actor who does not get enough attention.

I throughly enjoyed the direction on the part of Stephen Soderbergh, who brings a different perspective to this movie than to most I've seen. The movie has the courage to jump around from place-to-place, making the assumption the audience will keep up. I like that in a movie.

A great film. Highly recommend.

It took a while for me to decide to get Steven Soderbergh, Scott Frank and Elmore Leonard's "Out of Sight" on DVD. Was it really THAT good?" I would ask myself. "Is it worth ... bucks?" Yet something kept nagging at me. Eventually it wore me down, when I found a used copy on Amazon and sprung for it at a nice discount.

Having watched the film again, and partaken of a second viewing with the director's track (as the parlance would have it), I now remember why I saw this twice on the big screen in the course of a week. "Out of Sight" is a damn sexy movie - one out of only a handful in the last 20 years of the Hollywood film. And this calls to light the sum of Soderbergh's gifts as a director: he has the ability to approach big-star, high-profile filmmaking with the freshness, flair and (most of all) wit of an independent or one of the great Europeans (Fellini, Truffaut, Bergman). This might just make him the Hollywood's savior.

Witness the chemistry and performances he extracts from the entire cast by playing them to their strengths. The list reads like a Who's Who of Hollywood's Underused Talents: Catherine Keener, Steve Zahn, Albert Brooks, Luis Guzman, Michael Keaton and - particularly - Don Cheadle, who should be a Huge Movie Star any day now.

Then there are our leads, from the who's who of the misused. George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez are two of the Sexiest People Alive but, in the bulk of their careers, neither one seems capable of closing the deal like Jack Nicholson or Marilyn Monroe could in their respective heydays. To be fair, they don't make writers and directors the way they used to, either. But with Scott Frank's smart script and Soderberg's direction, Clooney keeps his head still, Lopez (whom I adore) seems smart, and while the film cuts back and forth between a supercharged drink in a bar and an impishly casual doffing of the wardrobe, I find myself making a mental note to make love to my wife at the nearest possible opportunity. That's a damn sexy movie.

It is the kind of film Hollywood doesn't make much anymore - bold, intelligent, and full-frequency entertainment, from steamy to funny to scary at the drop of an editor's blade. And it all carries over perfectly from the big screen to the comfort and convenience of my living room sofa. The DVD's commentary track is immensely imformative and even entertaining in its candor, as we witness the eternal struggle between writer and director played out in a series of anecdotes about a sometimes acrimonious process. It reminds us by the end that a lot of sweat and tears go into a work of art.

"Out of Sight" is certainly that.

Cinematic adaptations of books are almost always inferior because so much has to be cut out or changed to fit into a two-hour film. However, Elmore Leonard's books are tailor-made for movie adaptations because they are very visual and almost entirely dialogue and character-driven -- ideal for the screenplay format. Out of Sight is one of those rare movies that is actually better than the book.

Out of Sight is really a film about possibilities and the road not taken. What could have been. Jack Foley (George Clooney) is an ace bank robber who has one of the best introductions ever put on film as he quietly and politely robs a bank with nothing more than a smile and soothing voice. Clooney, with his movie star good looks and suave charm is perfectly cast as the smooth talking criminal. This may be his finest performance to date. His character meets Federal Marshall Karen Sisco (Jennifer Lopez) while breaking out of prison and the two hit it off immediately -- which is all the more impressive when one considers that their first meeting was spent in the cramped confines of a car trunk.

After lanquishing in obscurity for many years, Steven Soderbergh put himself back on the map with this smart, sexy and wonderfully stylish crime thriller that was ignored by audiences (due to lousy advertising and an even worse release date) but much beloved by critics. Fortunately, it has been re-discovered on video.

This movie just chugs along with such effortless ease and self-confidence that it is hard not to like. Besides Clooney and Lopez (turning in career-high performances), you've got a killer cast that features the likes of Steve Zahn (such an underrated character actor whose perfect here as a stoner criminal wannabe), Dennis Farina (Lopez's laid back dad who just wants to see her married to some rich guy or a cop), Albert Brooks (a bumbling white collar criminal type who is in way over his head), Don Cheadle (a tough guy-wannabe who is a classic schoolyard bully), and Ving Rhames (Clooney's tough, god-fearing partner in crime). It doesn't hurt that they have a super-smart script by Scott Frank to work with -- he perfectly understands Leonard's distinctive cadence.

And then there is Soderbergh's direction. His use of freeze frames as punctuation evokes the masters of the French New Wave and his use of colour always lets you know where the characters are in the story: warm colours for Florida, cold, metallic colours for Detroit.

Out of Sight also features a killer soundtrack masterminded by DJ extraordinaire, David Holmes. He mixes in his own brand of funky electronica with old school tunes from the likes of the Isley brothers and Willie Bobo that is infectious and perfectly suits the hip vibe of this film.

This Collector's Edition DVD is a must-have for fans of this movie if only for the relaxed audio commentary by Soderbergh and Frank who joke and talk at length about all sorts of aspects of the movie. This is a very informative and entertaining track.

Also included are some decent deleted scenes (including the car trunk scene between Clooney and Lopez in its entirety) and an excellent Making Of documentary.

Out of Sight is the ideal movie for people who like smart thrillers. It is well-acted, written and directed. It is also Soderbergh's best film after Traffic.

I love this movie. One of the few films of a Elmore Leonard novel that captures his off-center, ironic, quirky humor and style. A typical genre-buster, it is a prison/caper/crime movie that is really a love story that is more of a comedy that is really a character study.

Steven Soderbergh brings intelligence and just the right understanding of the material to bring off this oddball romance. And, he is helped enormously by a perfectly cast ensemble of players who make it all work nicely. Up front is George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez who generate some real on screen chemistry and heat and are a wonderful match. There isn't a missed note in the supporting cast of Don Cheadle, Ving Rhames, Steve Zahn, Dennis Farina, Albert Brooks and (unbilled) a nice cameo by Michael Keaton and also Samuel L. Jackson.

A bank robber escaping prison (Clooney) briefly captures a Federal Marshal (Lopez) who accidently interrupts the escape, and while riding in the trunk of the escape car with her, their respective masks drop briefly and they make a human connection. Neither can get the other out of his/her mind and their lives are destined to become intertwined.

That this simple premise of the accidents of fate and the fateful attraction of opposites works so well is a combination of great material to begin with (thanks Elmore Leonard), perfectly realized in all the details (thanks Steven Soderbergh and Frank Scott). His color schemes in the film show that Traffic was no accident. Nice touches with the music too!

George Clooney really stepped into Leading Man shoes with this one, and Jennifer Lopez (pre JayLo) is fine, and I do mean fine!

There is some nice extras and the Making Of documentary has Soderbergh actually telling us something about how he visualized and shot the movie, as well as the added treat of observations by Elmore Leonard and humorous comments from the cast.

A sexy romance with some graphic violence and loads of humor this is a unique and original piece of work. So glad that Frank Scott added the tag of hope on the end. Didn't detract from Elmore Leonard but made it all click!

Elmore Leonard's novel becomes a great Steven Soderbergh film. Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Frank cleverly play with the chronology of the action, and instead of seeming forced or arbitrary, the timing tricks allow us to become absorbed with a mixed bag of characters, instead of allowing the plot to propel us past them. And what a great cast: as a romantic bank robber, George Clooney has a nice worn and warm presence that plays well off the harder edges of US marshall Jennifer Lopez. They share a great scene trapped in the trunk of a getaway car, and their subsequent meetings and conversations (usually separated by a hotel lobby or a telephone connection) add to the romantic tension. The rest of the cast offers great support: Ving Rhames as Clooney's born-again bank-robbing pal; Steven Zahn as their spacey, marijuana-smoking, mental midget sometime accomplice; Dennis Farina as Lopez's father; Don Cheadle as the vicious hood that seeks to take over their planned heist of the Detroit home of Albert Brooks, memorably cheesy as the badly toupee'd millionaire. Then, just as the film reaches its climax, Nancy Allen pops in as Brooks' mistress; even though it's a small part, I was grateful to see her lovely, ironic presence. The only disappointment is that we don't have a chance to see more of Michael Keaton as Lopez's married lvoer; he has an excellent scene with Farina, which almost makes you wish to see him reappear later in the film. The film--basically a heist film--moves to an original beat, primarily because it cares more about character and atmosphere than about the heist itself, and the film's enigmatic romance is really center-stage. The film is tops in all departments, with stand-out cinematography that accents the sunny south Florida coast and the gloomy Detroit winter. Out of Sight upset Saving Private Ryan for Best Picture and Director with the National Society of Film Critics (foreshadowing Ryan's later loss to Shakespeare in Love); in this case, it's easy to see how the critics could have turned down Ryan's intensity for a genuinely off-beat, character-driven love story. Unfortunately, Out of Sight's poor box office made it an unlikely Oscar winner, although it's hard not to believe that had more Academy members bothered to see the film, it would have done better than just nominations for its screenplay and editing.