George Clooney in the Coen Brothers' Intolerable Cruelty: Masters of Irony - Page 5

Out of Time has been shot as a "steamy" film noir but one at war with itself because although the protagonist is a dupe, Denzel Washington doesn't play dupes. So instead the movie goes soft, as if stealing the drug money was a good thing because Matt believed the poor woman was dying of cancer. The fact that he's been played for a sucker just means he's "vulnerable." Franklin and Washington turn the script into a straightforward story about a Boy Scout who makes a booboo, losing altogether what could have been the most interesting layer of the story, the sense that human personality is full of potholes of vice that everything we've built up for ourselves by long, hard labor can disappear into. One lapse trumps all.

In other words, there's a "Gotcha!" inherent in this kind of irony that fuses the suspense and the comedy, making it so intensely entertaining. Without it, the story and the storytelling don't match: the structure is ironic but the execution is sober. As a result Out of Time never finds a tone or a rhythm; it's peculiarly literal and unaccented. And Franklin shoots right into the script's weaknesses, treating as high suspense inherently unphotogenic sequences in which Matt works against time by computer, fax, and cell phone to avoid detection. In the one sequence when he actually has to go somewhere, the audience wakes up and doesn't really care who falls off the hotel balcony just as long as something kinetic happens. (See Franklin's movies One False Move (1992), starring Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton, and Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), starring Denzel Washington, Jennifer Beals, Don Cheadle, and Lisa Nicole Carson, to get a fair view of what he can do as a director, especially with actors.)

Washington has an amazing command of naturalistic technique. He's particularly good here at overlapping, almost improvisational-sounding moments of casual dialogue. But because he avoids the irony there's no texture to his performance. Playing this man who's more corrupt than he intended to be, he has a mopey countenance when he starts realizing what's up that is, frankly, a drag. By the end we're meant to be relieved that Matt doesn't get busted, and I wanted to holler. The man took money that was evidence of a crime and gave it to his girlfriend; he shouldn't be chief of police. An ironist knows this in his bones. Franklin and Washington treat the story earnestly and become objects, rather than masters, of irony.

You can find this review and a lot besides at The Kitchen Cabinet.

Alan Dale is author of Comedy Is a Man in Trouble: Slapstick in American Movies.

Article Author: Alan Dale

Alan Dale earned a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Princeton University and a J.D. from Yale Law School. He currently works as a corporate tax attorney in Portland, Oregon.

He is the author of What We Do Best: American Movie Comedies …

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