Back Rowe Reviews
Real Time Movie Reviews from the Back Row of a Theater

Out of Time (PG-13)

tt0313443
Directed by: Carl Franklin
Starring: Denzel Washington
October 2003

“Thrill a Minute With a Touch of Humor”


Denzel doesn’t disappoint. Not much of a revelation, I know, but you would think that somewhere along the way, the Academy award-winning actor would trip up and select a project that would miss its target. In the early stages of the film, I thought this might be just such a time; the movie was very slow out of the starting blocks and featured Denzel, playing the chief of police in a small, shoreline town in Florida, in the throes of a divorce while messing around with another man’s wife—very uncharacteristic of the actor who’s brought us so many heroic roles in the past (Crimson Tide, The Pelican Brief, Remember the Titans and Antoine Fisher just to name a few).

Denzel’s Matt Whitlock makes one bad choice after another in the film’s prologue; he plans to steal away with his steamy paramour—who claims to be the victim of both an abusive husband and a fatal form of cancer—by using evidence money from a recent drug bust that had elevated his status to local hero. When Whitlock’s mistress and her husband are killed in an arson fire—and he’s spotted at the scene of the crime, events spiral downward at an alarming pace.

Putting out one brushfire after the next, Whitlock attempts to discover who framed him, while keeping his own police department and the feds. off balance just long enough for him to find the evidence that will exonerate him. After a series of nail-biting episodes in which Whitlock’s indicting affair is nearly revealed, and several genuine, on-the-edge-of-your-seat action sequences, Whitlock discovers the mastermind behind the elaborate trap and realizes that he may have committed one mistake too many.

As mentioned, Denzel is pitch-perfect as the protagonist, but he is surrounded by some wonderful talent, not the least of which is Dean Cain (Lois & Clark) as the rival husband, Sanaa Lathan as Whitlock’s mistress, Eva Mendes (2 Fast 2 Furious) as his estranged wife and his delightfully quirky side-kick, played by John Billingsley (Star Trek: Enterprise), who delivered the most memorable line in the movie, “A beer in hand is worth two in the fridge.”

It probably won’t go down as movie of the year in any category, but
Out of Time is a great popcorn flick that entertains and raises the blood pressure all at the same time.

Rating: 3