Browse: Home / Film on the Internet: OUT OF TIME (2003)

Menu

Skip to content
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login

The-SoluteLogo

A Film Site By Lovers of Film

Menu

Skip to content
  • Features
  • Reviews
  • Long Reviews
  • News
  • Articles and Opinions
  • Other Media
  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray
  • Decade of the Month: Tom "vomas" Morton on GO WEST
  • Taco Break: Getting Thirty
  • Celebrating the Living: Adam Arkin
  • Attention Must Be Paid: Teresa Wright

Film on the Internet: OUT OF TIME (2003)

Posted By ZoeZ on November 10, 2021 in Reviews | Leave a response

Carl Franklin’s Out of Time is a relentlessly paced, tightly plotted thriller that focuses on delivering pure entertainment value from start to finish. It may not be as ambitious as Franklin’s previous collaboration with Denzel Washington, the great Devil in a Blue Dress, but, as we like to say, it fucking owns.

Matt Whitlock (Washington) likes the sleepy Florida town of Banyan Key, where he oversees a four-officer police department; there’s so little to do that he can afford to knock back a few beers while on the job and then disappear for kinky sex games with his married girlfriend, Ann (Sanaa Lathan). But complications keep creeping in around the edges of Matt’s life. Ann’s husband, the volatile Chris (Dean Cain), beats her, and Matt is less and less willing to stand by and let it happen. His own estranged wife, Alex (Eva Mendes), a big city homicide detective, is trying to serve him with divorce papers. And Ann has cancer–which has just been declared terminal.

In a valiant effort to give Ann the financial cushion she needs to seek out an alternative treatment–or, if nothing else, spend her last few months alive safely away from Chris’s reach–Matt dips into the evidence locker and hands her $485K confiscated in a drug deal. It’s fine, he reassures her. He’ll figure something out. As slowly as the system grinds, no one will need that money for months. And with Ann changing her life insurance policy to make him the new beneficiary, he could, bleakly, always replace the missing money with that, once the inevitable happens.

Except in Out of Time, the inevitable happens all too quickly. Chris and Ann’s house burns down, with two charred bodies inside, and everyone suspects foul play. The movie takes a Big Clock-esque turn as, with a mountain of evidence pointing in his direction, Matt scrambles to officially investigate the crime while trying to cover up his own relation to it, something that gets even more difficult once the driven, hard-nosed Alex–who knows him all too well–is on the scene. And the DEA is calling: they need that missing $485K now.

Franklin serves up the film’s complications with a ton of flair, and Matt’s ingenuity–sometimes aided by luck, but only in a way that feels fair–makes for incredibly tense, engaging problem-solving. It’s all aided by charismatic performances (especially from Washington and Mendes), humor (especially from Matt’s best friend, John Billingsley’s Chae), and a sultry Florida atmosphere of sweat, steam, and sex. This is one of the most enjoyable combinations of “propulsive” and “fun” that you can find, and it depresses me that it barely made bank in a year where the highest-grossing movies included things like Bruce Almighty, Anger Management, and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.

 

Out of Time is streaming on Starz.

Posted in Reviews | Tagged Carl Franklin, Denzel Washington, Film on the Internet

About the Author

lamijames@gmail.com'

ZoeZ

Related Posts

Film on the Internet: GHOST DOG: THE WAY OF THE SAMURAI→

Film on the Internet: MICHAEL CLAYTON→

Film on the Internet: THE COLUMNIST→

Film on the Internet: Lydia Lomeli on KILL BILL VOL. 2→

  • Comments
  • Popular
  • Most Recent
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleWonderful piece, Sam. It's made…
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleFellow heretic here. I've never…
  • n***********@gmail.com'
    Ruck Cohlchez on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEI wouldn't have called it…
  • j***********@gmail.com'
    Son of Griff on LIFE ITSELFGlad to hear back from…
  • n*********@gmail.com'
    Jake Gittes on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEThis is the single most…
  • “The End” of SAVAGES

    30679 views / Posted November 10, 2014
  • What the fuck did I just watch? SPHERE

    26393 views / Posted March 19, 2015
  • Scenic Routes: SHOWGIRLS (1995)

    18894 views / Posted November 20, 2014
  • The Untalented Mr. Ripley: The Craft of Standup Comedy and the Non-Comedy of TOM MYERS

    17663 views / Posted June 26, 2018
  • Yvonne, or: CASABLANCA In One Character and Three Scenes

    9550 views / Posted August 21, 2014
  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray

    May 24, 2022 / William Taylor
  • Decade of the Month: Tom “vomas” Morton on GO WEST

    May 23, 2022 / Sam "Burgundy Suit" Scott
  • Taco Break: Getting Thirty

    May 23, 2022 / Tristan "Drunk Napoleon" Nankervis
  • Celebrating the Living: Adam Arkin

    May 22, 2022 / Gillianren
  • The two Charlies

    Attention Must Be Paid: Teresa Wright

    May 21, 2022 / Gillianren

Last Tweets

  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray - https://t.co/eVomucZv0R, 5 hours ago
  • Decade of the Month: Tom “vomas” Morton on GO WEST - https://t.co/gJTrXZWtwa, May 23
  • Taco Break: Getting Thirty - https://t.co/1lXgpRGRdj, May 23

©2014 - 2016 The-Solute | Hosted, Developed and Maintained by Bellingham WP LogoBellinghamWP.com.

Menu

  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login
Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!