`Out of Sight” is the latest movie pulled from the gritty trove of tough-guy novelist Elmore Leonard’s imagination. And, it’s a pip: a darkly amusing and sly romantic comedy about an accident-prone bank robber (George Clooney) who falls in love with the sexy federal marshal (Jennifer Lopez) on his tail.
As always with Leonard, the story of this savagely unlikely love affair is really about something else: the buffoonery of crime. In Leonard’s special screw-loose underworld, the crooks and cops may act cool and tough, but all their schemes go haywire. And here, that covers the would-be smoothie’s course of true love as well.
Like the book, “Out of Sight” begins with a ludicrous Miami bank robbery and progresses through an impressively bungled jail break and a mishandled police investigation all the way to a hilariously fouled-up diamond robbery in Detroit — with Clooney, Don Cheadle and a gang of dysfunctional wackos trying to rob the equally out-to-lunch insider trader Albert Brooks, with Lopez trying to stop them all.
Smartly written, brilliantly cast — and directed with almost palpable enjoyment by Steven Soderbergh — “Out of Sight” pleases you in many of the same ways as the last adaptation of a Leonard novel from Danny DeVito’s Jersey Films, “Get Shorty.” It’s almost as funny as “Get Shorty,” that surprising 1996 gangsters-in-Hollywood comedy, and it shows the same relish in offbeat character, the same delight in gangland argot and posturing, the same gallery of pungently off-color characters. But here, the movie has an extra romantic edge.
In the ’96 book, the flirtation scenes between robber Jack Foley (Clooney) and Federal Marshal Karen Sisco (Lopez) — which began when they were locked together in the trunk of a getaway car after Sisco’s abduction by jailbreaking Foley and his pal Buddy Bragg (Ving Rhames) — were salty and charming. But they weren’t necessarily hot. It was amusing that this mismatched pair, scrunched together and speeding away from Glades Correctional Institution, started chatting about “Three Days of the Condor” and discussing their jobs. And more so when Foley started wondering aloud whether they would have gotten along even better if they’d met under different circumstances.
But Clooney and Lopez give the movie added erotic heat. Their superficially cold-blooded talks crackle and crack you up at the same time. These simmering exchanges make you see why the characters go a little goofy. What Leonard, Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Frank are giving us in “Out of Sight” is a thoroughly jaded peek into the separate domains of cops and crooks, antagonists who spend so much time bragging about themselves that they never quite attend to business.
The crooks are the more confused. Karen may have romantic difficulties and an overly proud ex-cop papa (Dennis Farina). But Foley is a smart bank robber who dangerously loses track of detail — such as making sure beforehand that his car will start when he commits an impromptu robbery. Foley’s ever-reliable partner-in-crime, Buddy, is more together emotionally, though likable Buddy has a bad habit of confessing over the phone to his sister, a talkative ex-nun. And both these guys are felonious Einsteins compared with their partner, Glenn “Studs” Michaels (Steve Zahn), a slurry-voiced “Hey, dude” Angeleno luxury-car thief who idolizes Foley and Buddy and is the hapless instigator of the Detroit heist.
The movie shifts easily between the world of the criminals and the straights, while showing us there’s not much difference between the two. Foley, Buddy and Studs all meet earlier in Lompoc penitentiary, where they run across the story’s really bad guy: Maurice “Mad Dog” Miller (perfectly played by Cheadle), a psychopathic ex-pro boxer whose name has been changed in jail to “Snoopy” because when he boxes in the slammer, he usually lies down. Snoopy has two scurvy associates back in Detroit, sadistic ex-boxer brother-in-law Kenneth (Isaiah Washington) and White Boy Bob (played by ex-pro footballer Keith Loneker), a nearly brain-dead torpedo who gets shot in one of the least dignified ways for a film noir heavy.
But the movie’s most immoral character is Brooks’ Richard Ripley, a billionaire inside trader caught selling information who has stupidly told Lompoc jailmate Studs about the fortune in uncut diamonds hidden in his Detroit mansion. And Ripley’s diamonds become this story’s Maltese Falcon, the rich talisman that everybody wants. Ripley, played by Brooks with full smarminess and self-absorption, becomes a wonderful symbol of the utter fatuousness and arrogance of greed.
Leonard has said that screenwriter Frank (who also scripted “Get Shorty”) can adapt Leonard’s books into movies better than he can himself. And, after watching the movie and reading the book, I can see his point. Frank strips the tale down beautifully, making ingenious structural changes, while preserving Leonard’s characters, dialogue and cynical-jokey heart. He changes Buddy from a “redneck” to an African-American, which both racially balances the story’s sympathetic and unsympathetic characters, and creates a good part for Rhames. Frank gives this story more urgency, warmth and romantic ardor.
Director Soderbergh has tried noir before with “The Underneath,” his moody 1994 remake of the 1949 Robert Siodmak-Daniel Fuchs heist thriller “Criss Cross.” And while I liked “The Underneath,” this is definitely the superior movie. “Out of Sight” is sure-handed and solid, beautifully styled and shot, as well as often extremely funny. Cheadle, Rhames, Brooks and Farina (and, briefly, an unbilled Michael Keaton, reprising his Ray Nicolet role from “Jackie Brown”) all give first-rate comic performances, both eerily naturalistic and flawlessly stylized.
And, at the center, Clooney and Lopez supply glamor and passion. It’s a nice mix, an elegantly smoky and dangerous cocktail — just like the old noirs, but in a more modern, shinier glass. And since the basic brew is Elmore Leonard’s, it tickles as it goes down.
”OUT OF SIGHT”
(star) (star) (star) 1/2
Directed by Steven Soderbergh; written by Scott Frank, based on the novel by Elmore Leonard; photographed by Elliot Davis; edited by Anne V. Coates; production designed by Gary Frutkoff; music by David Holmes; produced by Danny DeVito, Michael Shamberg, Stacey Sher. A Universal Pictures release; opens Friday. Running time: 2:09. MPAA rating: R (language, sensuality, nudity, violence).
THE CAST
Jack Foley …………. George Clooney
Karen Sisco ………… Jennifer Lopez
Buddy Bragg ………… Ving Rhames
Maurice Miller ……… Don Cheadle
Marshall Sisco ……… Dennis Farina
Richard Ripley ……… Albert Brooks
