Taglines: Opposites attract.
Out of Sight movie storyline. A career bank robber, Jack Foley, and a U.S. Marshal, Karen Sisco, are forced to share a car trunk during Foley’s escape from a Florida prison. After he completes his getaway, Foley is chased by Sisco while he and his friends—right-hand man Buddy and unreliable associate Glenn—work their way north to Bloomfield Hills, a wealthy northern suburb of Detroit. There they plan to pay a visit to shady businessman Ripley, who foolishly bragged to them in prison years before about a cache of uncut diamonds hidden in his home.
A vicious criminal named Maurice Miller, who also spent time in jail with Jack and Ripley, is planning on hitting up Ripley’s mansion with his own crew, including Kenneth and White Boy Bob. A romantic interlude between Foley and Sisco takes place in a Detroit hotel, but the question of whether she is really pursuing Foley to arrest him or for love ends in a showdown during the robbery at Ripley’s home and adds to “the fun” Foley claims they are having.
Out of Sight is a 1998 American crime comedy film directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Scott Frank, adapted from Elmore Leonard’s novel of the same name. The first of several collaborations between Soderbergh and actor George Clooney, it was released on June 26, 1998.
The film stars Clooney and Jennifer Lopez and co-stars Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle, Dennis Farina, Nancy Allen, Steve Zahn, Catherine Keener, and Albert Brooks. There are also special appearances by Michael Keaton, briefly reprising his role as Ray Nicolette in Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown the previous year, and Samuel L. Jackson.
Sandra Bullock was originally considered to play Karen Sisco opposite Clooney. According to Soderbergh, “What happened was I spent some time with [Clooney and Bullock] and they actually did have a great chemistry. But it was for the wrong movie. They really should do a movie together, but it was not Elmore Leonard energy.”
Danny DeVito and Garry Shandling were considered for the part of Ripley before Albert Brooks was cast. The character of Foley appealed to Clooney, who as a boy had considered as heroes the bank robbers in movies, citing “the Cagneys and the Bogarts, Steve McQueen and all those guys, the guys who were kind of bad and you still rooted for them. And when I read this, I thought, ‘This guy is robbing a bank but you really want him to get away with it.'”
Soderbergh cites Nicolas Roeg’s 1973 film Don’t Look Now as the primary influence on how he approached the love scene between Foley and Sisco: “What I wanted to create in our movie was the intimacy of that, the juxtaposition of these two contrasting things … We had to mix it up and have you feel like you were more in their heads.”
The character Ray Nicolette also appears in Leonard’s novel Rum Punch, which was being filmed as Jackie Brown when Universal Pictures was preparing to begin production on Out of Sight. After Michael Keaton was cast as the detective Nicolette in Jackie Brown, Universal subsequently cast him for a cameo in the same role in Out of Sight.
While Miramax Films owned the rights to the character, due to the fact that Jackie Brown went into production first, director Quentin Tarantino felt it was imperative that Miramax not charge Universal for using the character, allowing the character’s appearance without Miramax receiving financial compensation. Nicolette appears in only one brief scene, whereas the character was a much more substantial element of Jackie Brown.
The film received Academy Award nominations for Adapted Screenplay and Editing and won the Edgar Award for best screenplay and the National Society of Film Critics awards for best film, screenplay, and director. Out of Sight was released on June 26, 1998, in 2,106 theaters and grossed USD $12 million on its opening weekend. It went on to gross $37.5 million domestically and $40.2 million in the rest of the world for a worldwide total of $77.7 million.
DJ David Holmes was originally hired to write a few sections of the film’s theme music. Soderbergh liked what he did so much that he had Holmes score the rest of the film. Holmes spent six weeks working 12- to 17-hour days to finish the score in time for the film’s release. He drew upon several influences, including Lalo Schifrin, Quincy Jones, Dean Martin, Miles Davis, Sun Ra, and Willie Bobo.
Out of Sight (1998)
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: George Clooney, Jennifer Lopez, Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle, Dennis Farina, Albert Brooks, Catherine Keener, Steve Zahn, Luis Guzmán, Keith Hudson
Screenplay by: Scott Frank
Production Design by: Gary Frutkoff
Cinematography by: Elliot Davis
Film Editing by: Anne V. Coates
Costume Design by: Betsy Heimann
Set Decoration by: Maggie Martin
Art Direction by: Philip Messina
Music by: David Holmes
MPAA Rating: R for language and some strong violence.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: June 26, 1998
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