241: Out of Time. This movie is the pure definition of an page turner thriller. This movie puts Denzel Washington's Florida police chief into a situation that seems to be dragging him further and further down. This situation is something that he does bring on himself. He is cheating on his wife with a high school sweetheart, herself still married to an abusive former football player played by Dean Cain. But after she puts him as the beneficiary on her life insurance and then she and her husband end up dead, the police chief finds himself as the prime suspect. It is definitely a goofy movie. All these reveals come complete with swelling music. Denzel Washington does his best to get ahead of the investigation which is naturally headed up by his wife. Just coincidence after coincidence. Nothing really comes out of left field for this film. You seem everything coming a mile away and the comedic relief medical examiner is too over the top and kind of grates on your nerves. If you like this sort of movie, it's okay but ultimately for me it's just not very good. I give this movie a D.

This is wholly typical to look at as "wrong man" thriller but makes more interesting sense when you take stock of it as modern noir. It begins with a man who is going around with someone's wife. He may be well meaning and the husband an abusive dolt, but there's something not quite right here and will need to be settled.So his tiptoeing in the dark takes noir shape in a narrative where he finds himself at the mercy of a plot where he was only being used, a character in a story prepared by cunning authors to exploit what he thought was love. The main tool for giving shape to turmoil is that the anxiety is so overwhelming, he splinters in two; one where he is pretending to work the case where he has been framed as culprit, the other where he must rush to prevent himself from being outed, tinkering with the story, changing clues.I like how it is all laid out in the very first scene, the scene of the narrator's emergence into the noir world; he has answered a call for a break-in to someone's house, she says it was someone exactly like him, he tries to seduce, then she does. Then we pull back to have it revealed that they know each other and were only playing, the call an excuse for the affair. But of course in due time we get to note that she was seducing outside the seduction, the affair an excuse.Along the way we have Florida as the evocative backdrop, some ordinary mechanics of tension as he fights to reclaim control.It's brought back full circle in the end where he emerges from the nightmare of this illicit affair and, having realized the hazard to his soul, is relieved to be taken back by his estranged wife (she was mightily impressed that he didn't kill and steal, okay). So with Denzel on the cover this might seem like any thriller, but it's from a noir genealogy. Denzel and this filmmaker had made a more alluring noir prior in Devil in a Blue Dress, this is more mechanical.Noir Meter: 3/4 | Neo-noir or post noir? Neo

Denzel Washington, Eva Mendes, Sanaa Lathan, Dean Cain and John Billingsley are all good in this very predictable Movie.I guessed the plot pretty early on when the Dean Caine character looked at the body in the Morgue. Sometimes you can forgive little mistakes in an otherwise good Movie, but the way that Denzel's character acted once he realised he had been played by the woman he was having an affair with and her husband was just plain silly. All he had to do was confess what had happened to his ex, but instead he embarks on ever more silly attempts to cover his tracks. We should remember that he is supposed to be Chief of Police and would know his silly plans would not work.It is a shame that the story was not more believable because with such a good cast it could have been a great movie.

Out of Time is directed by Carl Franklin and written by David Collard. It stars Denzel Washington, Eva Mendes, Sanaa Lathan, Dean Cain and John Billingsley. Music is by Graeme Revell and cinematography by Theo Van de Sande.Matthias Whitlock (Washington) is chief of police in little Banyan Key, Florida. Respected for his work and basically honest in the line of duty. Away from work, however, his marriage to Alex (Mendes) has failed, he's having an affair with an abused wife and he likes a little drink on duty. So when his lover Anne Harrison (Lathan) springs on him the shocking news that she has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, it naturally shakes his world. But this news is merely the start of something bigger, for pretty soon Matt will be in the unusual situation of having to stay one step of his own kind or face dire consequences.It's a film proudly wearing a badge of homage to film noir of the 40s. In fact it very much plays out as a contemporary riff on John Farrow's excellent Ray Milland starrer of 1948, The Big Clock. But that's fine, especially when you have some knowing craft in front and behind the camera in the shape of Franklin (Devil in a Blue Dress) and Washington (take your pick here really!). Yet as great as Franklin and Washington's work is, they all owe a debt to Collard's screenplay. Inventive in how it plays out as a plot, with it's many tight situations laid down for Washington's duped law enforcer to try and get out of, the screenplay has a knack for deft humour, often sly, which is something that even some of the hardest of noirs from the golden era are tinted with. The secret is being able to blend the humour with quality moments of suspense, and this picture manages to do that with some interest.Film also benefits greatly from the tight atmosphere created by photographer de Sande. Sweaty Florida in daylight doesn't cry out as being a good starting point for an offshoot of film noir (real Florida locations were thankfully used), but the scenic beauty is never realised during the drama sequences, colours are toned down, even for a stunning red sky, and this perfectly becomes at one with a near frantic Washington as the tricksters of Banyan Key start to close in on him. It's nice too see, also, interracial couples forming the core of the story, while the dominance of sexuality is firmly given a shrewd work over by director and writer. There's good thought gone in to making this, enough to steer it away from charges of just being a faux neo-noir production.Problems? Yes, a few. Inevitability of outcome is hard to shake off whilst viewing it, especially for those well versed in the genre (sub-genre). Clichés and contrivances are stacked up like a pile of cop thriller 101 books, and Franklin goes smug (daft) by dropping in a couple of slow frame sequences that the film clearly didn't need. While the big showdown in the finale lacks a gut punch. But this is a good viewing, sexy at times and always eye catching, it also pleasingly chooses perky dialogue over action to make its dramatic point. The cast around Washington enhance the quality: Lathan in the tricky role shows a number of layered gears, Cain is imposing as a bully boy husband (where did this Cain go?) and Billingsley almost sneaks in and steals the movie as the loyal and stoic comedy side-kick.So pesky flaws aside, this is a good recommendation as a night in movie for those with a kink for contemporary neo-noir. 7/10