Out of Sight

 

Director Steven Soderbergh

Soderbergh with Jennifer Lopez

George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez

OUT OF SIGHT         A-                                                                                                             USA  (123 mi)  1998  d: Steven Soderbergh     

I'm just gonna sit here, take it easy and wait for you to screw up.                                                   —Karen Sisco (Jennifer Lopez)

This foursome of films from 1998 to 2000, OUT OF SIGHT (1998), The Limey (1999), ERIN BROCKOVICH (2000), and Traffic (2000) represent Soderbergh working at the peak of his creative powers.  This is one of his finest efforts, named Entertainment Weekly’s Sexiest Movie Ever (50 Sexiest Movies Ever - Nick Kaufmann - LiveJournal) in a 2008 poll, a smooth, sophisticated and very sexy Hollywood thriller that features early performances in the budding careers of George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez, not yet stars, yet both sizzling onscreen and romantically involved in the most unorthodox fashion, as he is the handsome and charming Jack Foley, a career bank robber incarcerated at Glades Penitentiary in Florida, while she is Karen Sisco, a smooth-as-ice, intoxicatingly beautiful FBI Federal Marshal.  They meet while locked in the trunk of a getaway car as she’s kidnapped during a prison breakout when he is covered with mud, where the two have time on their hands to chat with one another and break the ice, actually discovering they have a mutual interest in classic Hollywood movies, talking about Faye Dunaway movies of all things, including the bad end of the otherwise likeable Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Clooney misstating the famous line from Network (1976), also wondering whether Robert Redford hooked up romantically with Dunaway a little too easily in THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR (1975), while he continues to stroke her thighs, “But in a nice way,” he insists.  Capturing the best of his directorial ideas, with an emphasis on stylish editing, sound, camerawork, frame compositions, and color, while still managing to maintain an independent director’s control over his films, Soderbergh has imported into Hollywood some of the formal preoccupations of experimental filmmaking, such as challenges to character identification and narrative structure, where his visionary style and his habit of playing with the timeline of events gave a new impetus to American cinema, though this inexplicably didn’t do well at the box office.  Adapted by screenwriter Scott Frank from a 1996 Elmore Leonard crime novel, best known for character-driven stories, the ongoing dialogue is exquisite, exuding razor-sharp wit, making excellent use of secondary roles, so much so that the directors could just as easily have been the smart-mouthed and wise-assed Coen Brothers, who perfectly recaptured Clooney’s acerbic criminal persona a few years later in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), while also generating a short-lived TV series appropriately named Karen Sisco, starring Carla Gugino as Sisco.  Casting is one of the more imaginative aspects of the film, as character development through the introduction of new faces continues to surprise the viewer from the first to the last shot, including Catherine Keener as Adele Delisi, Foley’s eccentric ex-wife, also brief appearances by Michael Keaton as FBI agent Ray Nicolette (Sisco’s husband) reprising his role in Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown (1997), while lifelong criminal Samuel L. Jackson from that film also plays a similar role, beautifully photographed by Elliot Davis, typically using a handheld camera, featuring interior hotel scenes with a warm and memorable glow, and a jazzy score by Irish composer David Holmes.  Despite the passage of time, this film has lost none of its sophisticated elegance and charm.    

Seemingly brought together by fate, Foley, with a dubious reputation of more than 200 bank robberies while never using a weapon, fortuitously acknowledges the moment, “It’s like seeing someone for the first time, like you can be passing on the street, and you look at each other for a few seconds, and there’s this kind of a recognition like you both know something.  Next moment the person’s gone, and it’s too late to do anything about it.  And you always remember it because it was there, and you let it go, and you think to yourself, ‘What if I had stopped?  What if I had said something?’  What if, what if... it may only happen a few times in your life.”  Or maybe just once, she adds.  While the relationship is the pulsating heart of the film, like a throwback to the golden age of Bogart and Bacall, both displaying the self-assurance and sexiness that makes them naturally irresistible both to each other and to audiences, there is a novelistic structure onscreen, with more than enough subplots involving a host of vividly drawn characters.  Foley and Sisco don’t really acknowledge their interest in one another, yet in their minds they do, and in an oddly embarrassing moment where neither one is supposed to be where they are, he gives her a short little wave from an elevator as she’s sitting in a hotel lobby, eyes fixed on his before he disappears from view with his fellow partner in crime, Buddy Bragg (Ving Rhames), who helped break him out of prison.  While Foley exercises the buddy system, working professionally in public, or being surrounded by hordes of prison inmates, or ex-cons once he escapes, it’s as if he’s never alone and one wonders if he’s capable of private, reflective thought.  Lopez, on the other hand, sexy and determined, has a smart-mouthed, over-protective, yet adoring father, a now retired marshal (Dennis Farina) who worries about his daughter’s dating habits and thoughtfully gives her a gun for her birthday, but for the most part she exhibits a loner policy, as she doesn’t trust the current misogyny and system of male favoritism in place that represents the state of mind in the ranks of the FBI.  So she’s used to going her own way and taking care of herself, irrespective of what they may think of her.  When she goes looking for a career criminal named Maurice (Don Cheadle), aka Snoopy, a murderous ex-prizefighter, but instead finds Mosella (Viola Davis) as his embittered, long forgotten wife, Sisco does a number on Maurice’s brother, Kenneth (Isaiah Washington), an over-controlling serial rapist and male thug, who instantly senses a hot-blooded woman with a taste for violence, exhibiting a sensual lust for getting down and dirty on the floor with her, so she zaps him with a collapsible baton that leaves him otherwise immobile, saying “You wanted to tussle.  We tussled,” as she calmly walks out the door unscathed.

Following another Elmore Leonard novel brought to the screen, Barry Sonnenfeld’s GET SHORTY (1995), both adapted by Scott Frank and produced by Danny DeVito, this is a collective mosaic of genre pieces from past decades, including shootouts, a jewelry robbery, and prison breaks, full of zooms, jump cuts, flashbacks, flash-forwards, close-ups, freeze frames, and grainy images, as if to remind viewers we are watching a movie, with a heated romance at the center, bathed in the warmth of a retro design, with a deep respect for the classical forms, where much of the beauty of this film is the dazzling interplay between characters, which in the world of criminals is all about exuding an air of confidence, refusing to be defeated or brought down by anybody.  Oddly enough, this is also the same method for initiating romance, which is beautifully done here, one of the highlights of the film, a clever mix of image and dialogue and music, preceded by Sisco sitting alone in a near empty hotel bar being hit on by a bunch of out of town male imbeciles before Foley walks in and they have a serious conversation, where their thoughts jump ahead out of sequence and we see what they are about to do before they actually do it, a co-mingling of the sexual imagination and the real, gorgeously understated, memorably jazzy and intoxicating.  Fascinated by his carefree behavior, in the mold of Clark Gable, even their post-coital conversation has an air of authenticity not shared anywhere else in the film, where Sisco is allowed to have doubts creep in, and Foley, of course, ever vigilant, puts her mind at ease.  They call this little interlude a “timeout” before they resume back to their normal lives, where Foley and Maurice are in competition for finding the big score, the teaser in all film noirs, which in this case is the robbery of $5 million dollars worth of uncut diamonds hidden somewhere in the giant estate of fellow white collar criminal Ripley (Albert Brooks), a Wall Street billionaire who did time in Lompoc for insider trading, where he met Maurice, amusingly paying his accounts in prison by checkbook.  While the first half of the film is set in sunny Miami with those south Florida vibrant colors, where there is a perceived lack of real menace, the second half moves to Detroit in winter, viewed as a dangerous, oppressive place, rendered in darker tones, dominated by nighttime scenes in tightly enclosed spaces.  It’s a snowy night in Detroit filled with sinister possibilities where anything can happen, with an elevated level of suspense galvanized by the unfocused impulses of sadistic black criminal gangsters, yet the film is really about the sexual swagger of Karen Cisco, one badass woman who’s sitting on the outside waiting to bust them.  Generally regarded as one of the most overlooked gems of the 90’s, the film is smart, tense, stylish, well-directed, character driven, atmospheric, and moves at a fast clip, like a screwball comedy, beautifully edited by legendary British editor Anne V. Coates, but the believable chemistry between the unconventional connection between Clooney and Lopez makes all the difference.   

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Hustlers

Samantha Barbash

Samantha Barbash and Jennifer Lopez

Roselyn Keo and Constance Wu

Jennifer Lopez on the set

HUSTLERS                C                    

USA  (110 mi)  2019  ‘Scope  d:  Lorene Scafaria                  Official Site

Chris Rock once claimed in his stand-up comedy routine that “As a father, you have only one job to do:  Keep your daughter off the pole!...If she’s dancin’ on a pole, you fucked up!”  What he was talking about is the subject of this film, though glamorized and viewed with a sense of female empowerment, much of which can be traced back to Jennifer Beals in FLASHDANCE (1983), a glorified crowd pleaser.  Throw Jennifer Lopez into the mix and we have another titillating experience that sensualizes the art of pole dancing, given the glamor treatment, somehow making it chic, transforming prostitution into a Vegas act of girl power.  Not sure any of this ever meets the bar of relevancy, feeling more like a fairy tale, but it’s designed to be another audience pleaser.  The main problem with commercial filmmaking is that it follows trends instead of staking out new material, where this is an attempt at political correct filmmaking, adding a female writer/director, supposedly offering a female’s perspective, but the film feels exactly like a male-written movie, the only difference being women are committing the crimes instead of men, where they are basically interchangeable.  Even though inspired by real events, it’s like watching a female mafia, as they have no moral values, where it’s all about making money, and when they get caught, they justify their behavior by claiming everybody does it.  This is exactly how criminals think, believing the world is filled with cheaters, so why not take advantage when given the chance?  Designed purely for commercial entertainment, there’s nothing about this film, and that includes the performances, that rise above the fray, as it never introduces any element of complexity and is instead content to play by the numbers, where it’s little more than conventional filmmaking, demonstrating no cinematic flair, looking more like an extended music video  It’s kind of a weird film in that it doesn’t generate fun or excitement, like the big personality Rat Pack stealing money from the Las Vegas coffers, delving instead into a sleazy, male-dominated business that couldn’t be more corrupt, as strip clubs aren’t glamorous, they’re dark and depressing places, where it’s about throwing your money away just about as fast as you can spend it, where the amoral actions of the female lead characters are simply deplorable, drugging people with the intent to make them forget whatever happened, basically stealing their credit cards for trumped up charges, where it’s highway robbery in the form of kidnapping, as you knock them out for a few hours with the sole purpose of robbing them blind, like the ultimate date rape crime.  There’s nothing fun about this, as it’s a contemptible crime performed by half-naked women dressed in glamorous designer outfits, made to look like they’re being clever, but it’s an utterly revolting practice, just another selfish, get rich quick scheme that takes people for suckers, ultimately leaving a sour taste in one’s mouth. Equally relevant, the real-life women being portrayed in this film didn’t receive compensation from the movie, so the film steals their lives, portrays them onscreen, inaccurately, by the way, and then pays them nothing.  There’s something underhanded about that which deserves to be mentioned.         

Inspired by an original article written by Jessica Presser in New York magazine December 28, 2015, The Hustlers at Scores -- The Cut, the film transfers this device into the movie, where the actions are presented as a flashback from an interview given to an investigative journalist, though the reason for the interview is never clear, as she’s revealing information about a group of strippers gone rogue, operating their own criminal ring on the side, using drugs to knock out their clients, taking as much from their credit cards as was humanly possible, all without having any sex and very little work, where the actual science involved was finding the right guy to fleece, serving him a single drink with a group of attractive women dressed to the nines, treating him like a king, getting his hopes up about the wonderful time he’s about to have, and then sucker punch him, believing this kind of set-up is an actual business transaction, though it’s theft, perhaps something this group of women wouldn’t want published, where talking to the press seems like an act of betrayal, a she’s basically ratting out herself and her friends with nothing apparently to gain.  As it turns out the reporter talked to more than one of the girls, but it’s never clear why they exposed themselves to the public, airing all their dirty laundry in public.  Perhaps they were proud of themselves, thinking they were so deviously clever.  This is equally confusing in the film, making little sense, though without these personal revelations there’d be no material for the film, which might have worked better portraying a completely fictional group of scam artists, leaving out the interviews.  Instead what we have is a group of former strippers fed up with a system designed purely to exploit the girls, where the men running the clubs made all the money, deciding instead to turn the tables on the clients by excluding the strip clubs as the middle men and sharing all of the profits themselves.  Even if it turns out to be grand larceny, these women think the men have it coming, as they’re mostly super aggressive Wall Street types with money coming out of their ears, where degrading women is their stock and trade, so they simply reverse engineer a system designed to steal all their money based upon a fictitious evening’s entertainment that never materializes.  For this kind of film to become a popular sensation only reveals the extent of our moral abyss and our fascination with narcissism, as this kind of one-way, self-serving behavior, whether initiated by men or women, is simply revolting, mirroring the actions of entertainer Bill Cosby, currently serving 3 to 10 years for his extensive date rape practice of drugging women, though we have seen this sort of thing before, in Mary Harron’s over-the-top use of surreal horror in American Psycho (2000) or Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), both of which demonstrated much more cinematic flair than this film, as did Steve McQueen’s Widows (2018), where this has much more in common with Sofia Coppola’s equally airheaded celebrity worship in The Bling Ring (2013).

At the film’s center is Constance Wu as Dolores aka Destiny (modeled after Roselyn Keo, who in reality was the business mastermind, not the innocent projected here), a single mom who takes up stripping to support her family, becoming mesmerized by watching the performance of a seasoned pro, Jennifer Lopez as Ramona Vega (modeled after Samantha Barbash, aka Samantha Foxx, aka Miss Foxita), who commands attention with a pole routine that produces maximum results, drawing plenty of attention (and money) from the men, even though she’s a decade older than most of the girls, who she mentors, showing them the ropes, taking Destiny under her wing, actually developing a routine together, becoming her personal trainer and choreographer.  Adding to this collective is Cardi B as Diamond, a Bronx-born stripper loosely based on her own stripping career, who also helps to mentor Destiny, Kiki Palmer as Mercedes (modeled after Marsi Rosen), and Lili Reinhart as Annabelle (modeled after Karina Pascucci), the latter two joining Destiny in Ramona’s inner circle after she hatches a plan to steal thousands of dollars from their clients.  The investigative journalist is Julia Stiles (modeled after Jessica Presser).  With the film essentially highlighting the rise and fall of Destiny, we see the film through her eyes, adding a personal narration about getting into the business, establishing some degree of success and economic independence before the economic disaster in 2008 when the stock market collapse left half of Wall Street unemployed.  Having to reinvent their careers when the club business went dead, with girls resorting to prostitution instead of dance acts, desperate times called for desperate measures, resorting to a powdered substance spiking a customer’s drink, a combination of ecstasy, creating a dreamlike reverie, and ketamine, an animal tranquilizer that makes them forget, often ending up totally blacked out, with the girls ringing up fictitious charges on their credit cards before sending them home in a cab.  “Easy peasy,” as Ramona describes it, an untraceable crime that leaves the men too humiliated and embarrassed to do anything about it, as most are married men with families, or have high profiles where this kind of information will never be made public.  Initially it works like a charm, but they get greedy, hiring more girls, some of whom are unreliable or on drugs, as they extend their operations.  Instead of leaving something for a follow-up scam, they take it all, emptying accounts for the credit card maximum, like $50,000, which would be considered a gold mine, quickly using up their best clientele, forcing them into more dangerous territory, reaching into the unknown.  While the camaraderie of the women is the centerpiece of the film, it mostly features the friendship of Ramona and Destiny, though we never learn much about any of the women, as there’s not a lot of character development, instead this accentuates the murky atmosphere of the clubs and the scantily clad women who work there, growing euphoric at what they’ve discovered, a way to get rich by barely doing any work at all, though Ramona (in real life it was Destiny) is viewed as a master at getting the personal details needed for credit card transactions, which might include passwords or security questions.  While it’s given the sleek look of a well-executed scam, using slow-motion to accentuate each of the women, with wall-to-wall music, there’s no covering up the fact that what they’re doing can destroy lives.  Nonetheless, they maintain their position that these men are assholes who deserve done to them what they routinely do to others, no regrets, no questions asked.  While it’s presented as a breezy, lightweight comedy, by the end, with the cops reluctantly breaking the case (from a tape recording by one of the clients), Destiny starts to reflect on what she’s done, yet there’s never any sense of remorse, leaving a dull empty feeling afterwards, never providing a hint of complexity or a sense that any of this matters.  For a much better film, view Andrea Arnold’s revelatory and much more emotionally devastating American Honey (2016).