Thoughts on Out of Sight

 

via Gfycat

" ... You have my wallet."
"And your gun."
"Think I can have them back?"
"How do we do that?"
"Well, let's see, you can come by my dad's place and drop them off."
"Yeah, I could leave it with the SWAT guy that answers the door."
"You know, there's a guy here on the task force right now. Maybe I should put him on the phone and let the two of you work it out."
"You wouldn't do that."
"Oh, why not?"
"Because you're having too much fun."

I wonder how many acting students since 1998 have had the guts to perform "Jack and Karen in the trunk." Can you picture any pair but George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez in that scene? It could have come across like one of SNL's "Chris Farley Show" sketches. I'll admit, though, that it would certainly be a memorable way to play the moment. Actually, considering how funny Out of Sight is, maybe Elmore Leonard would have appreciated Jack being a bit more overtly fanboyish. Anyway, I'm getting on a tangent. Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times, praised director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Frank for "(having learned) the main less of Elmore Goes to Hollywood: What becomes a legend most is, quite simply, respect."

Tell it to Universal Pictures, Kenneth. According to Peter Bart's The Gross, the studio decided to make Out of Sight its major release for the summer of 1998 because Meet Joe Black wasn't finished. It's funny in 2022, a time long after George Clooney, Jennifer Lopez, Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins have all been established as longtime figures in Hollywood history ("capital M, capital S, Movie Stars," as I like to say), to think about George starting his near-quarter-century as both a Movie Star and Serious Actor, Jennifer just before the Puff Daddy, J.Lo, romcoms and Bennifer 1.0 era and Brad just before the Jennifer Aniston era. Anyway, Bart wrote that Universal also gave Out of Sight especially inept promotion that ultimately killed any sort of buzz.

"Tell him that he has to wait in the hall, you have to get dressed. Say it loud."

"Wait in the hall, you have to get dressed!"

On the one hand, I'm glad that Out of Sight has become a cult classic. On the other hand, it's a shame that it was denied mass success upon its initial release. Yes, there's dark elements -- the less than Heroic BSoD on Glenn(Steve Zahn)'s face after his experience with Maurice (Don Cheadle), Kenneth (Isaiah Washington) and White Boy Bob (Keith Loneker), or Kenneth attempting to rape Midge (Nancy Allen) -- but for the most part, things are largely pleasant or at least not unbearable. Longtime readers know that I'm a sucker for movies where lovers have to complete a journey. In this case, it's Miami-Detroit, and back again. Being from Michigan, I'm both laughing at and impressed by how enticing Soderbergh made one of our winters seem.

"In a situation like this, there's a high potentiality for the common motherfucker to bitch out."

Most likely because it was an underforming summer release, Out of Sight had only a moderate impact during awards season. I think it's egregious that the movie failed to get a nomination for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. Surely the work of George, Jennifer, Ving Rhames (Buddy, Jack's partner in crime), Don, Dennis Farina (Marshall, Karen's loving father), Albert Brooks (Ripley, whose most prized posessions are his uncut diamonds and his hairpieces), Nancy, Catherine Keener (Adele, Jack's ex-wife), Isaiah and Steve was worth recognition? Shakespeare in Love, which won, plus Life Is Beautiful, Little Voice, Saving Private Ryan and Waking Ned Devine were SAG's five nominees.

As wonderful as Out of Sight's ensemble is, if George and Jennifer didn't have the chemistry that they did, if either or both opted for an overt star turn rather than excellent, character and partner-driven work ... if the flirting was even a little more smug, Sight would all just have been another exercise in fluff. Who knows? Maybe it was a movie its two stars could only make at that particular moment in their careers. Entertainment Weekly may have opted not to do a cover story on Out of Sight in 1998, but the magazine has still praised the movie over the years. Steven Soderbergh also got to voice his concerns to EW during Sight's initial release.

"It's a movie with movie stars. People are putting a lot of money into it, the spotlight is focused on it, and the odds of public failure are much larger than on any other film I've done."

Recommended.

Thoughts:

-- "Ray's working with the F.B.I. task force on the prison break." "I see that. Tell me, Ray, do you ever wear (a t-shirt) that says 'Undercover'?" "... No."

-- Box Office: Grossing nearly $37.6 million domestically on a $48 million budget, this opened at No. 4 and came in at No. 57 for 1998.

-- Awards Watch: Out of Sight went zero for two at the Oscars, losing Best Adapted Screenplay to Gods and Monsters and Best Editing to Saving Private Ryan. The screenplay did better with the Writers Guild of America, who awarded Frank over the people who brought A Civil Action, A Simple Plan, Gods and Monsters and Primary Colors to the screen. Out of Sight also beat A Simple Plan (and The Spanish Prisoner) for the Edgar Award. The final prominent victory was when Jennifer Lopez won the ALMA for her work as a lead film actress in a crossover role. For that, she beat out Trini Alvarado, Rita Moreno and ... Cameron Diaz in There's Something About Mary. Cameron beat Jennifer at the MTV Movie Awards, with George and Jennifer's kiss losing to Joseph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love.

-- Critic's Corner, the movie: Twenty years after its release, Out of Sight was declared the best movie of 1998 by the A.V. Club. A.A. Dowd singled out the "time out" scene. "(It's) shit-hot modern style in service of timeless, impeccable Hollywood entertainment." Roger Ebert had an eye on the past, favorably comparing George and Jennifer to Bogart and Bacall, as well as the recent past. "(It's) the first film to build on the enormously influential Pulp Fiction instead of simply mimicking it," he wrote. Emmanuel Levy, Variety, said Sight was "Soderbergh's most ambitious and most accomplished work to date." Owen Gleiberman, EW: "May be the first movie that has truly gotten an Elmore Leonard novel on screen, in all its hangdog wit and fractured-jigsaw form. ... So light it barely stays with you, but it's more fun around the edges than most movies are at their centers."

-- Critic's Corner, George: "(His) limited but powerful strengths have never been put to better use," Keith Phipps wrote for the A.V. Club in 1998. "Clooney for once stands erect, looks into the camera (and) proves he can act," Michael O'Sullivan wrote for The Washington Post. "Apparently, somebody finally told him to lose that cheesy come-hither look perfected over four seasons as TV's sly and sexy Dr. Doug Ross and in a handful of lackluster film roles as rougish charmers." Turan: "George Clooney is suave and debonair in a role that should silence doubts about his movie star status." Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: "Clooney is back bigger than ever, if indeed he was ever away to the extent the vulture hypemeisters figured."

-- Critic's Corner, Jennifer: "An actress who can be convincingly tough and devastatingly erotic, (she is) a woman you can confidently build a film around," Turan declared. Ebert was impressed by how Jennifer had honed her star quality. "Here she plays a role that could be complex or maybe just plain dumb, and brings such a rich comic understanding to it." "The real revelation here is the versatile and gifted Lopez, who manages to be sexy, bright and tough-talking all at the same time," Levy wrote. "Her poise and boundless energy make her a natural as a major Hollywood action heroine." Gleiberman: "Lopez, for all her Latina-siren voluptuousness, has always projecred a contained coolness, and this is the first movie in which it fully works for her."

-- Critic's Corner, Everybody Else: Janet Maslin, The New York Times, was impressed by "a dozen colorful supporting roles that have been cast here to wicked perfection." Levy: "Not since Boogie Nights has a Hollywood movie had so many characters and seemed so perfectly cast."

-- Hey, It's ...!: Michael Keaton, Viola Davis and Samuel L. Jackson.

-- Fanservice Junction: Gotta go with Karen and Jack taking off their clothes in that Detroit hotel room.

-- For the record, I've always wanted to try "Venkman's first visit to Dana's apartment" as an acting exercise.

-- "Adele?" "Yeah?" "You tell Buddy I see Glenn Michaels wearing his sunglasses, I'm gonna step on 'em. Might not even take 'em off first." "Okay, honey, I'll sure do that. Now, you try not to get shot. 'Bye."

-- Next: Hands on a Hardbody. On deck: Armageddon.