"That's a nice-a donut."
Sunday, May 08, 2005
Out of Time (2003)
Out of Time is a solid movie with an interesting premise, but ultimately is unfulfilling and disappointing. From director Carl Franklin, it features megastar Denzel Washington as a police chief of a small South Florida town who finds himself in a mess when he is inexplicably embroiled in an arson double homicide. The chief is having an affair with someone in town. He suddenly finds out that she has incurable cancer, and then he and the woman get involved in some shady dealings involving making Denzel the beneficiary to her life insurance as well as stealing a bunch of drug money out of police evidence. Soon things go very wrong and he must try to cover his tracks since all signs seem to point to him as the culprit. Among other things, he must contend with his soon-to-be-ex wife (Eva Mendes) who is a homicide detective in Miami and is heading up the investigation.
The plot of Out of Time is fairly complex and contrived. It wasn't until a "twist" late in the movie where I finally understood most of the things going on. Even so, the very end of the movie was fairly predictable. I think the film would have worked better on a different level, by having the chief come right out and fess up to the other investigators. Then the movie could have operated solely in the mystery/thriller genre, where it succeeded best (the occasional implausibility notwithstanding). As it is, there was too much going on for a plot with many holes. I could never tell what the movie was trying to be, or even whether or not I was supposed to empathize with Denzel's character.
I do appreciate how a star like Denzel sometimes takes parts such as this that aren't necessarily "the good guy" or are flawed or are morally ambiguous. The cast as a whole is pretty good; I especially liked the cliched but amusing role of the sidekick, played by John Billingsley as a medical examiner. Also, Carl Franklin does a good job of creating atmosphere and putting us right in sunny Florida. There are some neat shots, one notable scene is where an elderly lady is in the police station and fingers Denzel's chief as someone who she saw outside the crime scene the night before. Denzel and Franklin worked together before in The Devil in the Blue Dress. While I prefer that movie to Out of Time, I think the two are a good pairing and hope they make more movies together.
The Verdict: C+.
Michael Bentley 8:08 AM
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