Out of Time (2003)

A Florida police chief must solve a vicious double homicide before he himself falls under suspicion.

Director:

Carl Franklin

Writer:

David Collard (as Dave Collard)

Stars:

Denzel Washington, Sanaa Lathan, Eva Mendes

4 wins & 7 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Denzel Washington	...	Matt Lee Whitlock
Eva Mendes	...	Alex Diaz Whitlock
Sanaa Lathan	...	Ann Merai Harrison
Dean Cain	...	Chris Harrison
John Billingsley	...	Chae
Robert Baker	...	Tony Dalton
Alex Carter	...	Cabot
Antoni Corone	...	Deputy Baste
Terry Loughlin	...	Agent Stark
Nora Dunn	...	Dr. Donovan
James Murtaugh	...	Dr. Frieland
Peggy Sheffield	...	Judy Anderson
Evelyn Brooks	...	Judy's Mom
Eric Hissom	...	Hotel Clerk
Tom Hillmann	...	Living Gift Salesman (as Tom Hilmann)

Storyline

Matt Whitlock, the police chief of the small town of Banyan Key, Florida, is separated from his wife, Alex, a police homicide detective in MIami. Matt's been having an affair with Ann Merai Harrison, a woman who's separated from her abusive husband, Chris, and who says that she has cancer. When her doctor tells her of a new expensive treatment, Matt decides to give her the nearly half a million dollars in an evidence lock up that he seized from a local drug bust. When Ann and her husband turn up dead only days after naming Chief Whitlock as beneficiary on a million dollar Life insurance policy, things start heating up for Whitlock as the evidence his wife Alex is gathering stacks up against him. And as if things couldn't get worse, the D.E.A. now want the drug money a.s.a.p. Anxiety runs high for Whitlock as he scrambles to figure out who has set him up and also recover half a million dollars all while trying not to break a sweat or draw any suspicions. He's a man who is way out of ...

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Plot Keywords:

cell phone | wife murders husband | woman murders a man | shooting a woman | deception | 

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Taglines:

The Clock Is Ticking...

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for sexual content, violence and some language.

Details

Official Sites:

MGM

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

3 October 2003 (USA)

Also Known As:

Tiempo límite

Filming Locations:

Boca Grande, Florida, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$50,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$16,185,316, 5 October 2003, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$40,905,277, 30 November 2003

Company Credits

Production Co:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM),Original Film,Monarch Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

105 min 114 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Considered to be a loose remake of "No Way Out".

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Goofs

When Matt and Alex go to the dental office, Alex refers to the dentist as "Sheridan", although before and after he is called Shider.

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Quotes

Matt Lee Whitlock: Just never leave your wife. That's what happened to me.
Chae: [laconically] I'd take the bullet.

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Crazy Credits

The name Burt Ward appears as "Boy Wonder Executive Producer"

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Connections

References Dragnet (1951)

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Soundtracks

Joyful Girl
(1996)
Written by Ani Difranco
Performed by Soulive featuring Dave Matthews
Published by Righteous Babe Music
Courtesy of Blue Note Records, a division of Capitol Records, Inc.
Under license from EMI Film & Television Music

User Reviews

Enjoyable enough little film but nothing special

Matt Lee Whitlock is the chief of police in a town in Florida. He has an ex-wife on the job and a girlfriend dieing of cancer. When Ann tells him that her husband has changed the details of her life insurance policy, Matt agrees to be named the new beneficiary in order to keep any payout safe. Meanwhile, under pressure to help her treatment, Matt takes drug money from the police safe however, when Ann and her husband are both killed in an arson attack on their home a murder investigation is launched – with Matt's ex-wife Alex heading it up. Initially quick to cover all links between him and Ann, Matt soon finds that all the clues are starting to point to him and realises that he is being framed.

Despite a solid (and sexy) cast, this looked too much like an average crime thriller to bother me to go to the cinema. However on DVD I decided to give it a go over the weekend as it seemed more suited to the small screen. Indeed the plot is no great shakes and is essentially a series of little set pieces on the way to a twist that was so apparent that the film doesn't even really deliver it with any great effort. However this is not to say it is no good, but just that it is nothing particularly special. The direction is good and it really helps the film keep a good sense of pace in the way the camera spins around in even the office environment but really it is the cast that make this stand out from the many other crime thrillers that never make it to the cinema.

Washington may well be slumming it here (he criticised it because he said all he did was run) but he holds the attention really well. His character doesn't really act like he should do and sometimes he is just plain wrong but Washington is suitably frantic and sweaty like a man hemmed in on all sides. Mendes is enjoyable even if she has no real character to speak of either, while Lathan rounds out the sex appeal with an OK performance but hardly the femme fatale that she should have been. Cain does better than he usually does and credit to him that he does manage to hold his own with Washington. Generally none of the lead three really act at the level that they can but their presence makes it more interesting.

Overall, my (and most viewers) assumptions were mostly right – it is an enjoyable little thriller but not one that is really worth hunting down. The big name cast are sexy and do reasonably well with the little they are given and director Franklin injects more pace that it probably deserved and the end result is a solid enough little film but not one that really does anything special.