Principally this is the story of serial bank robber Jack Foley and Federal Marshall Karen Sisco, on opposite sides of the law but inescapably attracted to each other. When Jack escapes from prison aided by his friend Buddy (Rhames) he ends up in the trunk of a car with the kidnapped Karen Sisco (Lopez) after she nearly foils the prison break. However, thanks to their inept friend Glenn Michaels (Zahn), Karen escapes and Jack and Buddy have to go on the run. Meanwhile, Karen Sisco is hot on Jack's trail in more ways than one in this brilliantly played, beautifully written, excellently directed movie. This has everything I love about movies, a great story, great cast and great style. Truly unmissable and well worthy of five stars. 5/5 The first DVD I bought by ---- John T. Jameson (Laguna Beach, ca United States) When I finally got my DVD player this was the first one I bought. Why? Because not only is the film spectacular but this DVD has a host of fabulous extras that very few DVD's can match. The story and characters are all well thought out and I never felt that this film made a misstep. I never write reviews for these kinds of things but I read that one person felt that this film was unoriginal and I just had to say my piece. If anything this film is completely original. I am a film major and have been in school studying film for almost four years, trust me when I say this film is deserving of its praise and it has a lot of it. 5/5 Lopez & Clooney Shine by Thomas Magnum (NJ, USA) Out Of Sight is yet another movie based on an Elmore Leonard book. Mr. Leonard's books are always full of colorful characters and sharp dialogue and unfortunately that many times doesn't transfer to the screen. This movie is another story. Steven Soderbergh has taken the true spirit of the book and captured it in this movie. The movie is interspersed with flashbacks and this allows us to see how characters got to certain points in the film. The film revolves around bank robber Jack Foley (George Clooney) and FBI agent Karen Sisco (Jennifer Lopez). Foley breaks out of a Florida prison and comes into contact with Karen as his accomplices hijack her and her car. She and Foley are put in the truck and the conversation between the two of them is scintillating. They let her go unharmed and she is on the case tracking him, but she finds that she has feelings for him. There are some great plot twists that I won't give away and the movie ends in surprising fashion. This movie showed that George Clooney had big screen star potential as his understated, cool persona is perfect for this role. Jennifer Lopez burns up the screen with sexy charm. The supporting players include the always solid Ving Rhames, a sinister Don Cheadle and a hysterical Steven Zahn. Out Of Sight is a fast-paced, well-crafted and completely entertaining movie. 5/5 Cool as Sinatra by S. Vincent Furness (Virginia) Out of Sight, wow. What a movie, it literally blew me away. Steven Soderbergh is such a great director, if I were Elmore Leonard I wouldn't have trusted anyone else to handle it. And Scott Frank, what can I say? His writing speaks for itself, quite literally. George Clooney was as cool as the steel edge of a magnum .357. He could have put both Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin to shame with one quick glance. And by his side? The slinky, ever-sexy Jennifer Lopez. She melts the screen and everyone that stands or sits around her. Her character was Mickey Spillane's wet dream. Steve McQueen and Faye Dunnaway once turned a chess game into a steamy, erotic rendevous in the Thomas Crown Affair. Clooney and Lopez do a little bit of history repeating, this time in her trunk. One a bank robber who has just escaped from Glades Prison in Florida and is greased in mud and sweat. The other a U.S. Marshall packing a shotgun and a .38 snuggly planted on her thigh. The combination of the two is explosive. This film is a must see. What more is there to say, it's the next best thing to perfection. Watch it and love it! Just don't get burned by the fireworks! 5/5 The best movie of 1998 by Others have already commented on the movie itself (which was voted the best movie of '98 by the National Society of Film Critics, beating, among others, Saving Private Ryan), so I'll skip that and move on to the DVD Collector's edition: it's by far the best DVD I've seen. The picture and sound quality are excellent, and there are some great extras: there's a short "Inside Out of Sight" featurette, which is okay, but the real gems are the commentary by the director and screenwriter, and the deleted scenes (22 minutes worth). Among the scenes included in the deleted scenes: the original one-take version of the trunk scene, an entertaining scene with Ving Rhames and George Clooney discussing, among other things, wine and lilic-scented bath oil, and great scenes between Karen (Jennifer Lopez) and her father as well as an extended (and very insightful) scene between Karen and Adele (Clooney's ex-wife in the movie). There's also a different (and much more graphic) version of the Detroit meeting between Karen and Raymond Cruz. If you love this movie in its original form, the collector's edition DVD is worth it for the deleted scenes alone. You'll get a lot out of them.
Other goodies: a nice theatrical trailer, and production and technical notes. This is what DVDs are all about.
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
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