Out of Sight

Newsweek David Ansen

Lucky for us there are no ordinary circumstances in this smart, tasty adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel and it gets quirkier, funnier and sexier as it goes.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

In some ways Soderbergh does a much better job than Tarantino. He handles the time shifts more adroitly, always keeping us on track; he goes easy on the violence, and when he does unleash it, it's short, fast and ugly.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

One other element helps Out of Sight tremendously: the editing. [3 Aug 1998]

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

[Soderbergh] plays with time and narrative to reveal character, mood and longing in ways you just don't find in a mainstream crime picture.

LA Weekly Manohla Dargis

This isn't a profound film, or even an important one, but then it isn't trying to be. It's so diverting and so full of small satisfying pleasures, you don't realize how good it is until it's over.

Variety Emanuel Levy

Reveals Soderbergh in peak form, as he endows Leonard’s postmodern yarn with a meticulously detailed mise en scene that helps each member of his terrific ensemble soar.

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

The film's sleek moodiness and visual sophistication are so effective that there's even a scene here that makes Detroit look like the most romantic city in the world.

New Times (L.A.) Michael Sgragow

The audience responds to Out of Sight the way Jack and Karen do to each other. Instantly we like the way it looks, moves, and sounds. Ultimately we like how it makes us feel.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Engaging and consummately entertaining.

Time Richard Schickel

What makes this movie work is the kind of cool that made Get Shorty go so nicely: an understanding that life's little adventures rarely come in neat three-act packages, the way most movies now do, and the unruffled presentation of outrageously twisted dialogue, characters and situations as if they were the most natural things in the world.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

Jack is just one of a dozen enormously appealing personalities in Out of Sight.

Slate David Edelstein

Soderbergh contrives the perfect voice for Leonard's prose--laid-back and grooving when it needs to be, but also taut, with the eerie foreboding of violence about to erupt.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Works both as a great romance and a great, unconventional crime thriller. But step back from such distinctions, and it just looks like a great movie.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Everything in Out of Sight is smart -- the dialogue, the characters, and the storyline.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

It's a nice mix, an elegantly smoky and dangerous cocktail -- just like the old noirs, but in a more modern, shinier glass. And since the basic brew is Elmore Leonard's, it tickles as it goes down. [26 June 1998]

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The first film to build on the enormously influential "Pulp Fiction" instead of simply mimicking it. It has the games with time, the low-life dialogue, the absurd violent situations, but it also has its own texture.

New York Daily News Dave Kehr

When boy meets girl in Steven Soderbergh's jaunty, sexy Out of Sight, it happens with a bang.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Undoubtedly, [the lead actors] both benefit hugely from the sharpness of Leonard's stock-in-trade dialogue: Put smart words in any actor's yap, and their performance will rise accordingly.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Lopez, for all her Latina-siren voluptuousness, has always projected a contained coolness, and this is the first movie in which it fully works for her.

Film.com John Hartl

Quite a spicy brew.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

What makes "Out of Sight" a grown-up treat is that the mixture of lust and longing is as flawlessly proportioned as the ingredients in a perfect cocktail.

Film.com Tom Keogh

Soderbergh appreciates the value of having fun with a so-so script, turning its cliches into fresh experiences and infusing energy into the margins of a predictable story.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Hardly a serious caper film, Out of Sight instead takes a lighter approach, effortlessly offering up as many unexpected chuckles as it does bullets.

USA Today Andy Seiler

The low-key approach probably gets closer to the soul of Leonard, but it lacks zip. As a result, Out of Sight sometimes runs out of gas.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Steven Soderbergh's direction conjures an understated '70s vibe, striking an apparently effortless balance between grit and glamour.

Film Threat Ron Wells

Clooney has finally made a GOOD movie.

Film.com Sean Means

Soderbergh and [screenwriter] Frank like these sidekicks so much that they overwhelm the leads — a fairly easy task, since Lopez has all the police presence of a Revlon ad, while Clooney again tries to skate by on his good looks and smirking charm.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Much of the action seems more like warmed-over Quentin Tarantino than first-rate Steven Soderbergh.

San Francisco Examiner Barbara Shulgasser

Out of Sight needed the energetic and stylish hand of "Get Shorty" director Barry Sonnenfeld. Instead, a sad-sackish Soderbergh ( "sex, lies and videotape") comes at this material looking as if his mind was on something else, something much, much more depressing.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Out of Sight engaged me less and less, until by the end I no longer cared which of the characters lived or died. Not even the engaging Jennifer Lopez, George Clooney, Albert Brooks, Don Cheadle, and Ving Rhames or the talented secondary cast can survive the abbreviations and last-minute shoehorning their characters receive.