Out of Sight Is Another Steven Soderbergh Crime Movie Winner

If you’re watching a Steven Soderbergh movie, it’s likely gonna have a burning contempt for the wealthy. That's been an especially notable fixture in his most recent cinematic works, even the one psychological thriller he did in 2018. There also might be heist movie elements, though there are plenty of titles in his filmography (like Contagion) devoid of influences of that genre. Still, there are a number of entries in Soderbergh’s canon that do manage to combine those two central thematic elements, with one such example being his 1997 motion picture Out of Sight.

North Texas Film Festival 2019: The Laundromat Is Expansive To A Fault

Where has all the money gone? That's what Ellen Martin (Meryl Streep) wants to know. She just lost her husband in a tragic accident on a tour guide boat and in the wake of such a miserable turn of events has been informed that the company behind the boat her significant other perished on has lousy insurance that won't be giving her any kind of pay-out to help soothe her turmoil. Who could be behind such a scam? Well, that would be Jurgen Mossack (Gary Oldman) and Ramon Fonseca (Antonio Banderas), two men running an insurance company that operates numerous shell companies that allow the wealthiest people on the planet to keep their money secure and free of being taxed. It benefits the powerful but for everyday individuals like Ellen Martin, it only produces nightmares.

Steven Soderbergh's The Limey Is Brilliantly Written and Edited

SPOILERS FOR THE LIMEY FOLLOW

Typically, Steven Soderbergh movies have more than a touch of comedy to them. Sometimes the comedy manifests itself in more pronounced ways like in his features Logan Lucky or The Informant!, other times it emerges in more subtle ways, but usually Soderbergh delivers movies that are likely to deliver a chuckle for every bit of inventive piece of camerawork. His 1999 crime drama The Limey has moments of comedy to be certain, like an amusing sight gag of a server passing out drinks as police officers and ambulance workers try to take care of a dead body. But it's one of the more melancholy Soderbergh directorial efforts I've seen and that turns out to be the proper tonal choice for this specific story.

Merging The Direction of Steven Soderbergh With An Excellent Tarell Alvin McCraney Script Make High Flying Bird A Winner

Steven Soderbergh may have "retired" for a brief period in the mid-2010s, but he's now managed to deliver three more directorial efforts in the span of 18 months starting with 2017's delightful comedy Logan Lucky. The newest effort in his return to directing see's Soderbergh going to the land that so many filmmakers are traveling to these days to get their movies made: Netflix. After his attempt to shake up theatrical distribution with is last two films and the Fingerprint Releasing label, Soderbergh's decided to just unleash his newest movie, High Flying Bird, as well as his next directorial effort (the Meryl Streep vehicle The Laundromat) for the streaming service that managed to really kick its original movie game into high gear last year.

The Cast Steals The Show And Then Some In The Fun But Visually Derivative Ocean's 8

Director Gary Ross proves to be a far better filmmaker helming Ocean's 8 compared to his last two directorial efforts The Hunger Games and Free State of Jones, both of which, particularly the latter disaster, suffered from amateurish direction that heavily stilted the already struggling stories they were bringing to life. However, Ross as a filmmaker still finds himself struggling with Ocean's 8 as he (along with the cinematography by Eigil Bryld and some of the editing by Juliette Welfling) channels the visual style and rhythm of Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven trilogy in a manner that ends up feeling evocative of those three films without ever being fully accurate or satisfying. It's so familiar yet distinctly not the same, it's like, as Jenny Nicholson once put it in describing a Porg toy from Target, "...waking up to everything in your house shifted a few inches to the right."

Ocean's Thirteen Goes Through The Motions In An Entertaining Fashion

Steven Soderbergh brought his Ocean's Eleven trilogy to a close with Ocean's Thirteen, an adventure that saw the main characters of the prior two movies (save for those played by either Julia Roberts or Catherine Zeta-Jones) embark on a heist spurred by vengeance. After Reuben Tishkoff (Elliot Gould) gets double-crossed by super wealthy businessman Willy Bank (Al Pacino), Danny Ocean concocts a plan to get some revenge on Bank by way of sabotaging the opening of his newest casino resort. This is a plan that's going to require all kinds of elaborate set-up and tricks, all in the name of aiding a friend. Despite all the hard work ahead, the other nine members of Danny Ocean's gang agree to help.

In Sharp Contrast To It's Predecessor, Ocean's Twelve Is a More Monotonous Kind of Heist

Ocean's Eleven made so much money at the box office that it might as well have been the haul the lead characters managed to grab after a successful heist. With all that dough in the bank, it was inevitable that a sequel would arise. Interestingly, for the follow-up project entitled Ocean's Twelve, the decision has been made to make this a direct sequel to Ocean's Eleven that basically starts off right where its predecessor left off and, instead of having everyone get away scott free after pulling off a heist, the guy who they robbed in the first film, Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), is looking to get every penny back that the eleven main characters of the first film stole from him.

Unsane Is Another High-Quality Thriller Effort From Director Steven Soderbergh (SPOILERS WITHIN!)

MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR UNSANE BELOW

While I mentioned in my review of The Informant! that a number of Steven Soderbergh's most famous movies revolve around comedic crime capers, for me personally, I think my favorite Soderbergh mode might be when he decides to go into the thriller genre. He's made a number of forays into this genre in this decade, specifically, Contagion in 2011, a terrific sweeping look at how a disease affects numerous different individuals and Side Effects in 2013, a twisty-turny thriller with great performances from Jude Law and Rooney Mara. The newest example of how good Steven Soderbergh is when he's working in the world of thrillers is the motion picture Unsane.

The Informant! Show Matt Damon In Top Form But Steven Soderbergh Has Done Better

SPOILER ALERT 

Director Steven Soderbergh loves movies about criminals with some of his most famous works (namely, the trilogy of Ocean's Eleven movies or Out of Sight) exploring crooks in a light-hearted manner, while one of his most acclaimed dramas (Traffic) explores various avenues of criminal activity. His 2009 effort The Informant! falls in between these two groups of movies in terms of tone, there's a wry playfulness to this specific Soderbergh meditation on criminal activity, but it's also clearly supposed to be more contemplative about specific sociopolitical issues compared to his more jaunty explorations of law-breakers.

"We're Up All Night For Good Fun, We're Up All Night To Get (Logan) Lucky"

The South and its associated culture (and other parts of the country north of the South that hew closely to said country) are weird. Anything to do with redneck stuff is inherently just a little bit off-kilter. Not saying there aren't strange facets of the upper-crust life too (why are fish eggs considered a culinary delicacy among the wealthy again?) but having lived in Texas for over two decades, I'm well-aware of how a large share of the little details of everyday life around here really are just bizarre like certain colloquialisms, fashion traits, and societal faux pas. Filmmakers like Richard Linklater have used that truth heavily in their own films and now Logan Lucky is the newest film to utilize the inherent oddness of Southern customs as a backbone for entertaining cinema.

Magic Mike XXL Review

He Works Hard For The Money

A bit of bait and switch occurred for audiences who saw Magic Mike in 2012, as marketing promising two hours of strippers dancing and having a good time gave way to a Steven Soderbergh feature that contemplated responsibility and the price to pay for forgoing the harsh realities of the world. There was still plenty of shirtless dudes gyrating, but the layers found in the movies themes took it to the next level of quality. Surprisingly, the sequel, Magic Mike XXL, manages to be a satisfying follow-up even while toning down the more introspective elements.

Editorial: Netflix is Making Films With Adam Sandler, But It Is Far From The End Of Cinema

It's sorta fun to see movie theater owners get all scared whenever a new way of experiencing cinema comes around. Back in late 2011, whenever Universal Pictures planned to put the long-forgotten comedy Tower Heist on Video-On-Demand services a few weeks after its release in select cities, theater owners refused to show the movie until the studio cancelled the plan. Universal wound up relenting, but a new disagreement between movie theaters and a studio seems less likely to end in a amicable manner.