OUT OF TIME (2003): 2 stars out of 4. Starring Denzel Washington, Eva Mendes, Sanaa Lathan, Dean Cain, John Billingsley, Robert Baker and Alex Carter. Written by David Collard. Directed by Carl Franklin. Rated PG-13. Running time: 105 minutes.
You slowly run out of patience watching Out of Time.
This new crime melodrama stars two-time Oscar-winner Denzel Washington in a film filled with implausabilities and improbabilities.
And as you get deeper into this 105-minute potboiler you realize it's merely a derivative of Kevin Costner's No Way Out, itself a remake of a 1948 thriller, The Big Clock.
What we have here is the chestnut about the individual staying one step ahead of the authorities to prove he is innocent of a crime, despite all the clues pointing to him as the perpetrator.
In Out of Time Washington puts another small dent in his good-man image by portraying Matt Lee Whitlock, police chief in the small town of Banyan Key, Fla. Whitlock is separated from his wife, Alex (Eva Mendes), and is having an affair with Ann Merai (Sanaa Lathan), an old high school sweetheart, now married.
Through a series of events, Matt misappropriates several hundred thousand dollars he is holding as evidence in connection with a DEA investigation, and becomes the prime suspect when the house occupied by Ann Merai and her husband, Chris (Dean Cain) goes up in flames and two charred bodies are found in the wreckage.
Well, you don't have to be a Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett to figure out who did what to whom.
And that is one of the film's major drawbacks. It's like one of those little kids' puzzles with only six big pieces; it doesn't take much to fit them together.
Problems abound within the story. Alex, a Miami detective, is assigned to investigate the double homicide, yet why a Miami detective would be called in on a murder case in another jurisdiction is never made clear.
Also, wouldn't a police department have second thoughts about assigning a case to the estranged wife of the local police chief? You'd think that would impede, not expedite, the investigation.
Matt gets help and alibis from his friend, the county's medical examiner, Chae (a jolly comic turn by John Billingsley, best known as the doctor on UPN's Enterprise), but no motive for his actions are given except that he likes Matt.
The whole plotline is rather suspect.
Washington's Whitlock is a rather grim and somewhat dull individual, who does not seem overly bright, so it's a stretch to see him outwit of all the big-city investigators.
Mendes' character also is fuzzy. We get hints that she and Matt separated because he is rather introverted and did not share his feelings with her. And it's intimated they had job issues.
Billingsley at least breathes some much needed lightness and humor into the proceedings.
Director Carl Franklin, who directed Washington in Devil in a Blue Dress, has done better work.
Out of Time is merely a time filler. It will probably go down as merely a blip in Washington's illustrious career. But every good actor is entitled to stumble now and then; this is just Washington's turn to trip.
Bob Bloom is the film critic at the Journal and Courier in Lafayette, IN. He can be reached by e-mail at bbloom@journalandcourier.com or at bobbloom@iquest.net. Other reviews by Bloom can be found at www.jconline.com by clicking on movies. Bloom's reviews also appear on the Web at the Rottentomatoes Web site, www.rottentomatoes.com and at the Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Bob+Bloom
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