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Out of Sight scored critical raves, but its title sums up the theatrical fate of Steven Soderbergh's coolly comic crime caper and misfit romance based on
Elmore Leonard's novel. But this is the sort of buried treasure home video was created to rescue.
George Clooney comes into his own as a leading man in the role of inveterate bank robber Jack Foley. Incarcerated, he uses another inmate's prison break as a cover for his own escape. Waiting for him, according to plan, is his partner, Buddy (Ving Rhames). Also waiting for him, not according to plan, is federal agent Karen Sisco (the ravishing Jennifer Lopez). She finds herself disarmed in more ways than one when she is deposited in the getaway car's trunk with Jack. But that doesn't stop her from joining the task force created to capture him, while he plans "one last heist."
Out of Sight is a rich, entertaining film, stylish without being showy, faithful to the integrity of Leonard's potent dialogue and quirky characters, and seamlessly acted by a dream ensemble. Standouts include Albert Brooks as convicted insider trader Richard Ripley, who while in prison brags to the wrong people that he has $5 million in uncut diamonds hidden in his house; Don Cheadle as Maurice (don't call him "Snoopy") Miller, with whom Jack warily teams up to steal said diamonds; Dennis Farina as Karen's protective father (his idea of a birthday gift is a Sig-Hauer .38); and, in unbilled cameos, Michael Keaton, reprising his Jackie Brown role as FBI agent Ray Nicolet, and Samuel L. Jackson.
If you liked Get Shorty and Jackie Brown, you'll find this, well, Out of Sight. --Donald Liebenson
After many mishaps, the art of bringing Elmore Leonard's novels to the screen is coming to fruition. This latest adaptation, by director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Frank, gets it just about right. George Clooney, a kindly bank robber, breaks out of jail and into the life of Karen Cisco (Jennifer Lopez), who is, if you are prepared to believe it, a U.S. marshal. He kidnaps her, then releases her, after which she turns the tables and spends the rest of the movie looking for him; behind the threat of violence, it's a fluent comedy of errors. This being Leonard country, the two leads are required to go to bed with each other before the final shootout; the sex itself is the one point of visual sloppiness in a movie that is otherwise crisp and smartly edited, full of bleached Miami sunshine and leaden snowstorms in Detroit. The supporting players-Ving Rhames, Nancy Allen, Catherine Keener, and a balding Albert Brooks-are a casting director's dream, with the honors going to the stoned and dumbly dazzled Steve Zahn. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006
The New Yorker