MY MOVIE SHELF: Out of Sight

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 172  Days to go: 171

Movie #205:  Out of Sight

Out of Sight is a coming together of greats. Everything great about director Steven Soderbergh is here, from his stylized aesthetic to his inventive nonlinear heist structure and the great performances he pulls from scores of interesting actors. Everything great about writer Elmore Leonard is here (the movie is based on his novel), from the interesting characters to the snappy dialogue to the sparkling chemistry and thrilling plot. Everything great about George Clooney (as Jack Foley) is here, from his suave, effortless charm to his no-nonsense confidence to his playful sex appeal. And Jennifer Lopez (as Karen Sisco) is at her very, very best in this film. Selena might’ve been her breakout, and she has certainly stalled as any kind of successful actress after the Gigli bomb (or the Maid in Manhattan bomb) (or the Monster-in-Law bomb) (or whatever), but she is phenomenal in Out of Sight — calm, cool, collected, enigmatic, assertive, outspoken, powerful, a force to be reckoned with, and absolutely the sexiest she has ever been, no lie.

Jack Foley is a bank robber, but the nice kind. He never uses guns, for example. As the movie starts, we see Jack leave one building in a fit of anger and frustration, notice the bank across the street, and go over to rob it as a way of calming himself down. He’s very smart, very methodical, and very courteous. He robs the teller almost entirely on wit and charm and only gets caught because his car won’t start. He winds up at Glades Correctional in Belle Glades, Florida, where he escapes with the help of his oft-times partner Buddy (Ving Rhames), and where he meets Karen Sisco, US Marshall, for the first time.

Karen is at Glades by chance, winds up witnessing the prison break by several Cubans, and is confused and then abducted by Jack and Buddy when Jack emerges from the escapee’s tunnel wearing a prison guard uniform. (It was a top-notch plan, if not for her presence.) They put her in her trunk, which Jack climbs into as well, and Buddy drives them off safe and sound. This is Jack and Karen’s meet-cute, where they spend a car ride locked in a trunk trading thoughts and feelings on movies and other minutiae. They have a lot of chemistry, but it doesn’t stop Karen from trying to do her job and foil their getaway. She only partially succeeds, however, and the rest of the movie chronicles Jack and Buddy’s working toward their big score up north and Karen’s constant pursuit of them, all while the two would-be lovers contemplate a life in which they could maybe take a time out and explore these ever-increasing sparks of theirs.

Soderbergh is known as an actor’s director, and it’s easy to see why with the amazing performances he gets out of not only his leads, but every single supporting actor (and even those with cameo roles) in his films. I love Don Cheadle, and his work here at Maurice “Snoopy” Miller is almost unrecognizable in terms of his total immersion into the role of a vicious, irredeemable criminal. Whether it’s murder or grand larceny or just throwing a fight, Snoopy has no qualms, no conscience. Meanwhile national treasure (and seriously one of the funniest character actors of our time) Steve Zahn — as screw-up stoner thief Glenn Michaels — is dopey and ditzy in the best possible ways, plus he manages to accomplish 90% of his acting through the wearing of a ridiculous headband. There’s also Albert Brooks as Ripley, who manages to look even dumber with hair than without, and Dennis Farina as Marshall Sisco, Karen’s dad, who is as no-nonsense a detective as she is but who is also so loving and accepting of her. Pile on top of that great small performances from Luis Guzman (who can’t believe magicians use fake legs), Catherine Keener (as Jack’s adorable ex-wife), Michael Keaton (as Karen’s FBI guy squeeze), and even Samuel L. Jackson as an inmate with a history of leaving custody, and you have a film chock full of surprising and entertaining performances. Honestly, every single one is a delight (even Isaiah Washington pre-Grey’s Anatomy as Kenneth who likes to tussle, and early era Viola Davis as his sister Moselle). That’s not an easy thing to pull off, but Soderbergh is a whiz at it.

The tone of the movie is light, but also foreboding and wary. There’s a lot of hesitancy between what Jack and Karen feel for each other, what’s prudent, and what they can reasonably expect out of their attraction given their completely different lives, but in the end it’s actually heartwarming the way Jack and Karen’s fatalistic attitudes toward their futures don’t prevent them both from looking out for the other — Jack emptying his gun, Karen shooting him in the leg — and keeping each other safe. It’s as if they know they can’t call time out right now — and alter-egos Gary and Celeste have no chance of making things work — so they wait to find a better time. And, hey, it’s a long drive to Florida.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Confidence

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 300  Days to go: 289

Movie #73: Confidence

To make a successful movie about con artists — or especially about a particular con — the audience has to be duped. This is not an easy task, obviously, since the audience knows it’s a con (it’s often right there in the title, see: The Sting) and is looking for ways to reveal the trick before the movie does. However, if a movie can lay bare certain aspects of the con, while holding back on others and smudging the timeline or order of events enough to blur the narrative, the audience gets the reveal just as the mark in the film does, and it’s immensely satisfying. Confidence is just such a movie, and it is immensely satisfying.

The key to Confidence is the framing. The movie starts with our narrator, Jake Vig (the dead sexy-and-he-knows-it Edward Burns), lying dead in an alley. From the point of view of the audience, Jake’s ghost or whatever is telling how he got in this, shall we say, predicament. He points the finger at Rachel Weisz (who we find out later is Lily, a woman he meets when she picks his pocket, as all con artist meet-cutes go), who is somehow the cause for him being held at gunpoint in the aforementioned alley by (the equally fine) Morris Chestnut (as Travis). Travis wants to know how it all started too, so we enter our second narrative layer (Jake narrating to the audience and Jake talking to Travis) as we go into a flashback within a flashback to three weeks earlier.

From this point on, the audience goes ahead aware of these two layers, and maybe a third a little later on, but the movie itself is actually working on an entirely different level. Some things are authentic, others are not, while sometimes there’s crossover of the two and maybe things don’t mean what they seem. (The opening titles do a great job of illustrating this impermanence with letters that turn and move and switch into other letters, forming different words in the credits. Title work doesn’t get enough credit, so it’s important to point out when it’s really done well and with intention.) It’s really seamlessly executed, to the point where even if you think you’ve guessed the trick, it’s still not disappointing whether or not it turns out you were right.

The other way the framing works to the movie’s advantage is that it provides necessary exposition about how a confidence game works, who the players are, and what roles they play. It makes the film easy to follow without losing any of its intricacy. The complexities of the relationships and motivations of each of the characters remain undiminished by the seeming transparency of explaining how the cons work. This is thanks to deft plotting and direction, plus excellent character work by the actors.

Jake’s crew is rounded out by Paul Giamatti as Gordo and Cougar Town‘s Brian Van Holt as Miles. When they lose their fourth to retribution by crime boss “The King” (Dustin Hoffman), Jake brings in rogue grifter Lily. There are also a couple of dirty cops (Donal Logue and Luis Guzman) and a federal agent named Gunther Butan (Andy Garcia) in the mix, wreaking their own kind of havoc. Everyone brings their A game to this one, playing at least three or four different roles throughout, layer upon layer, seemingly open yet distant — cards close to the vest. Motivations may be straightforward or misleading, and none of the puzzle pieces really come together to form a clear picture until the end. It’s really spectacular work all around, though I think Rachel Weisz deserves the most praise. Burns is stoic throughout — a no-nonsense leader of the group, a straight-talker, determined, always with a clear intention and plan even if you don’t know what it is — but Weisz gets to play the enigma. She’s the wild card, and you never know who she might be playing or what she might be after. It’s a great role for a woman — strong, confident, aloof, underestimated and pivotal — and I think that’s the kind of thing Weisz is great at and doesn’t get enough credit for. Special props also go to Dustin Hoffman. He’s an odd choice for a crime boss, to be sure, but he brings so much depth to the role. He’s hypersexual, manic, somewhat prissy and yet still menacing. It’s fascinating to watch his interactions with both Burns and Weisz, as he really plays up those encounters, but even with his own staff he’s quite intriguing.

The con artist movie is a popular, well-worn one. The Sting is no doubt considered the best, and The Grifters was also highly acclaimed. In the 21st century, Ocean’s 11 gets the most praise — and it’s great. It’s funny and inventive and I love it. But in my opinion, Confidence is the better of the two films. The stakes are higher, the structure is stronger, and the performances are better. Check it out sometime.