BEFORE: This is another popular, well-respected (?) film that it seems most everyone, except for me, has seen. Thematically, I'm wondering if this one should have come after "Cool Hand Luke", in place of "Carlito's Way". Linking from "Bad Boys II", Joe Pantoliano was in the classic "Midnight Run" with Dennis Farina (last seen in "Thief"), who appears in tonight's film.
THE PLOT: A career bank robber breaks out of jail and shares a moment of mutual attraction with a US Marshall he has kidnapped.
AFTER: A career criminal and a career cop - who'd have thought they'd be attracted to each other? Well, if they're played by George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez (last seen in "Jack"), it might become a little easier to understand. Let's face it, Clooney is charming as a thief ("Ocean's Eleven"), he's charming as a businessman ("Up in the Air"), he's charming as a federal agent ("Burn After Reading").
It's pretty tough for a film to find a good balance between action and humor, I felt this one managed to ride the line in-between, though I also found it a little too talky (show, don't tell...). It's also a nice cross between a prison film and a caper film.
I know it's directed by Steven Soderbergh, who directed the "Ocean's Eleven" trilogy, but in tone this one almost seemed something like a Coen Brothers film - take the bad guy/good girl romance from "Raising Arizona", the George Clooney as a fugitive plot from "O Brother, Where Art Thou", and fold in the criminals screwing up aspect of "Fargo", and you might get something akin to this.
But again we find a movie that can't tell its story in a linear fashion - the plot jumps around in two timelines, one after the prison break, with frequent flashbacks to what happened in prison, or even before. Say it with me - this was probably done to cover up some kind of story flaw that existed when the story was told in order. Probably the director feared that either the prison story or the caper story wasn't strong enough on its own, so the two needed to be scrambled together. Plus it gives the added advantage of leading off with the most exciting bit, the bank robbery. (Exciting in that George Clooney "I'm so cool" way, not in a shoot-the-hostages kind of way.)
But why not just take some time to fix the story problems, or eliminate the boring bits, so the story can unfold bit by bit? We know it's possible - or were you going for "artistic" by messing with the timeline? Suspicious how this movie came out just a few years after "Pulp Fiction", hmm?
Also starring Ving Rhames (last seen in "Surrogates"), Don Cheadle (last seen in "Colors"), Luis Guzman (last seen in "Carlito's Way"), Steve Zahn (last seen in "Sunshine Cleaning"), Albert Brooks (last seen in "The In-Laws"), with cameos from Catherine Keener (last seen in "Percy Jackson & The Olympians"), Viola Davis (last seen in "Law Abiding Citizen"), Nancy Allen, Michael Keaton (last seen in "The Other Guys"), Isaiah Washington and Samuel L. Jackson (last seen in "S.W.A.T.")
RATING: 6 out of 10 ski masks
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