‘OUT of Sight,” which won three National Society of Film Critics awards last Sunday for best picture, best director and best screenplay is a terrific movie: funny, sexy and cool. But – and it’s a big, strange, almost inexplicable but – according to box-office figures, nobody’s seen it.
Critics everywhere – the populist as well as the snooty kind – loved it, which is why this romantic crime-comedy made it onto a significant number of reviewers’ top-10 lists (including my own). After all, what wasn’t to like?
“Out of Sight” combined the wit and sensibility of the best independent films with the action heft and lush production values that the big studios do best. It had absolutely everything, and it all came together.
Yet, for all its sparkling screenplay, stylish direction, its unbeatable underlying story (Elmore Leonard’s novel of the same name), and excellent performances by a cast of bona-fide movie stars and top-notch character actors, it died quietly at the summer box office.
Why?
Presumably “Out of Sight” was the victim of bad timing or bad marketing – even though Paramount is usually one of the better marketers in the business. Nervous exhibitors may have yanked it before positive word of mouth could reach critical mass. It’s also possible that an ending that very subtly suggests a happy future for the protagonists may have put off young, cynical audiences weaned on unambiguously happy finales.
Fortunately, the NSFC award could mean that “Out of Sight” is in the running for some Oscar nominations. And, if it were to win an Academy Award, then the movie might finally attract the audiences it deserves.
If this happens, George Clooney may well have the most to gain. Too often, he has been swallowed by his movie roles. (In his most recent, “The Thin Red Line,” he barely registers). But here he finally showed that his charm, looks and presence really can work on the big screen. “Out of Sight” also benefits from a breakthrough leading-lady performance by Jennifer Lopez as the luscious-but-tough U.S. marshal who falls for him while they’re locked in an automobile trunk.
The two stars have explosive chemistry. And director Steven Soderbergh (of “sex, lies, and videotape”) makes the most of it in a bravura “Don’t Look Now” style montage that intercuts high-octane verbal flirtation with the two of them disrobing and falling into bed.
Still, come Oscar time, screenwriter Scott Frank has perhaps the best shot at a statuette. He also adapted Leonard’s “Get Shorty” for the screen. But, if anything, he does an even better job with “Out of Sight,” endowing the movie with the kind of pungent, witty but always convincing dialogue that allows fine actors like Don Cheadle, Ving Rhames, Catherine Keener, Luis Guzman, Michael Keaton and Dennis Farina to really strut their stuff.
Cheadle, who was terrific in “Boogie Nights” as a country-western music-loving stereo salesman, is simply sensational as a vicious Detroit gangster with a fondness for business jargon.
Sure, it’s hard to go wrong with a cast and material like this. But Soderbergh deserves the credit for taking both to the next level. Perhaps no other director around today could use freeze-frames and flashbacks so deftly and seamlessly to control the film’s pacing, while giving it both a lighthearted feel and an arty gloss.
If he does get the nod for a nomination, he will find himself up against a competitive group. Any list of likely nominees for best director will probably include Peter Weir for “The Truman Show,” Steven Spielberg for “Saving Private Ryan,” Shekhar Kapur for “Elizabeth” John Maddox for “Shakespeare in Love” and (mostly for bad reasons) Terence Malick for “The Thin Red Line.”
But with “Out of Sight,” Soderbergh has shaped an intelligent, funny caper film that is as finely crafted and faultless as it is enjoyable, and that puts him up there with the best of his peers.