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: Erin Brockovich

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: 279  Days to go: 270

Movie #98: Erin Brockovich

Really fun Soderbergh retrospective, but it really bugs me when "Erin Brockovich" gets so casually dismissed. http://t.co/d16xqfzw7l

— Joe Reid (@joereid) August 10, 2014

As if note-perfect star vehicles are so easy to make.

— Joe Reid (@joereid) August 10, 2014

That was Joe Reid, the Entertainment Editor for The Wire, tweeting truth about Erin Brockovich — one of Steven Soderbergh’s most successful, yet least revered, films. (And before you go noting that Soderbergh was nominated for a Best Director Oscar for Erin Brockovich the same year he won for directing Traffic, I’ll point out that politics and popularity come into play concerning Oscar nominations and wins a lot more than AMPAS would like you to believe, and that Soderbergh managed not to split votes with himself and lose out to Ang Lee (probably the most deserving nominee, for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) or Ridley Scott (for Best Picture winner Gladiator) in part because, given the choice, nobody would vote for Soderbergh’s direction of Erin Brockovich over his work on Traffic. It just wasn’t going to happen. Ever.) Erin Brockovich is — a lot like its title character — outspoken and flip and not overly artful, but, man, does it get the job done.

Julia Roberts is phenomenal as Brockovich — a tough, uncultured woman fighting to get by who elbows her way into a job, stumbles across some shady dealings between Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) and the town of Hinkley, CA, and by sheer force of personality and will, helps bring about “the largest settlement every paid in a direct-action lawsuit in U.S. history.” Say what you will, not every actress can play bold and brash the way Roberts can. Just as she did in Pretty Woman, she manages to portray someone who stands out and rubs everyone the wrong way and makes people uncomfortable, but who wins people over and clearly has a huge, loving, generous heart. That’s a difficult balance to achieve. And it’s right in Roberts’s wheelhouse.

Of course, Hollywood loves true stories like this, the little guy beating out the big, bad corporation, and the film is definitely engineered to be a crowd-pleaser. But what I love about it is how honestly it portrays the struggle of a single mother. Single mothers get put on pedestals when their child grows up to be a famous athlete or something, but a lot of times they’re vilified — never overtly, but politically and societally. Erin Brockovich’s story isn’t all that different from a lot of women’s: She got married and had a baby when she was young, her husband leaves her with a couple of kids and she has no education or work experience to get herself a job — not one that’s going to pay her enough to cover her bills, at least. She can’t afford insurance or child care, and she has no benefits. So how is a woman like that supposed to survive? The movie sets her up as someone to be admired for her perseverance and gumption and “bootstrap” mentality, but in the real world very few employers will give you a chance based on your word, and even fewer will see your value to a company when you don’t necessarily play by the same social rules as everyone else, even if you get more work done, and do it better, than anyone else on the team. People make their assumptions about you, and it’s really hard to change them. Even Ed (Albert Finney) tells Erin in the film, “Look, I’m sorry but you were gone for a week. I assumed you were off having fun.” She responds, “Oh, and why the hell would you assume that?” Unfortunately, we don’t always get to challenge someone else’s assumptions about us.

The movie doesn’t just deal with how hard it is to get and keep a job, though, it also addresses how hard it is to find and keep a relationship, and all the stigmas attached with it. Because Erin’s been divorced not once but twice, she’s clearly perceived by those around her as some sort of low-class floozy, as if she chose for her husbands to leave her. And when she meets George (Aaron Eckhart), he initially bucks the trend of men in her life by embracing her work and her kids, but when the pressures of the PG&E case take too much of a toll on her time and her health and her state of mind, he caves. He scolds her for her attitude and tries multiple times to guilt her into quitting, and when she asks him to stay to prove he’s not like the others, he leaves anyway. So not only is she at fault when she can’t provide for her family, she’s also at fault when the job that allows her to provide for them keeps her away from them too long. It’s a no-win game for her — for lots of women — but she’s forced to play it regardless.

Of course there are lots of references to her looks or her using them to her advantage, but whether you buy into that or not — whether you find her brazenness distasteful or not — you can’t argue with the passion with which she fought for her clients (featuring some nice work in small roles by Marg Helgenberger and Cherry Jones) and her obvious sacrifices in order to do right by them. Roberts never lets you forget that. “That’s my work, my sweat, my time away from my kids! If that’s not personal, then I don’t know what is!”

If I had to guess, I would say a lot of people remember Erin Brockovich for the lines. “They’re called boobs, Ed.” “That’s all you got, lady. Two wrong feet in fucking ugly shoes.” “Do they teach beauty queens to apologize? Because you suck at it.” There are some great ones, as well as quite a few powerful monologues, but the truth of the matter is there’s a lot more to it than that. This is Julia’s movie, through and through, and she owns every single scene with defiance and audaciousness and fierce commitment. No other Oscar nominee put that much vitality and magnetism into her role that year, which is why she won. Plus, she wore that gorgeous vintage Valentino with the pleated train. High class or less so, the woman knows how to own it.