When the voice-over announced Danny DeVito as a guest on a recent
episode of Letterman, I was ready to switch over. But, and as these
anecdotes so often go, I'm glad I didn't change. The man is a great
communicator– you'd expect nothing less from a comic. But there was
something about his directness, in the way he openly addressed the
audience rather than Dave, and his succinct advertorial gab which
reminded me he's one of the genuine players. One of the kind that makes good films simply because they are good films. And so I've got the feeling that we indirectly have Danny DeVito to thank for Out of Sight. Either that or no one is willing to let Soderbergh near another flop.
The plot follows a habitual bank robber across several stays inside
correctional care and on the outside in pursuit of that mythical final
job that will break the bank. The one to retire on. Leavin' the life.
Buyin' me an island somewhere. You know the drill. The film knows the
drill, the myth, and the whole comic-book gangsterism made Hollywood
dream. There is a place where movie-referring films often end up, and
that place is television. Out of Sight does have moments of seeming like a very high-end telemovie, with funky guitar chops, that
almost-slapstick brand of clumsy humour, and fantasy/dream sequence
trickery. But because this is essentially an Elmore Leonard movie given pictorial flesh (and oh! what flesh), the film rolls like an easy conversation. Almost as well greased as Bukowski on the bender, that is, with enviable fluency, like, how does he make it so simple, believable and realistic all at once? Bastard!
I like that Clooney. He's more often himself playing a certain role than a yes-man played by his method. Somehow he manages to remain outside of the "vehicle" irony of film degradation; yes, I do believe he even brings charisma to the role here. But that charisma is the pen of Leonard, that is, it's a dialogue charisma, that is, a half-literary charisma which the Herald degrades to a 'thinking person's turn-on'. Hm. Yes, I concede there is a considerable turn-on in the film, but Leonard is the man. And then there is Jennifer Lopez. Coming down fast from the mountain (purely metaphorically, in an exaggerated way of course) of Oliver Stone and that Sean Penn vehicle; she blossoms with the cool chiaroscuro of restrained sexuality in Out of Sight. I'm not talking about in-yer-face, mudflaps my baby's got 'em sexuality, I mean the restrained sleek of shiny leather and Detroit winters. That is, a federal marshall who gets cooped up with the Clooney in the red-light trunk of a car, talks movies and bank robbers with the man, and hey presto, we're running into a fantasy. 
She has the enviable gift of refining almost her entire sexuality into a cold (or fiercely contained but grinning around the edges) pout. Sure she is the sex interest in the film, say the ironists, but she is bold and integrated. Soderbergh has made a good team player out of everyone. And the script allows everyone to be real enough to be flawed; our hats off to DeVito again.
There is that element of tele-predictability in the story of the cop who falls in love with the robber, and I was coming to dread the finale, but fortunately I didn't change over, it's resolution was so compact and resolved that I felt something that could be called an intellectual buzz, or the priapic Herald come-down, what you will. And along with the punctuated use of freeze frames and narrative crossovers (watch out for the best bank robbery since Hana-Bi), and the beautiful hips of Jennifer Lopez (oh, so beautiful I could cry), Out of Sight is
well-handled, high-grade cinematic stuff.
rino breebaart
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