Review of:Out of Time (2003)
Director:Carl Franklin
Rating:PG-13 for sexual content, violence and some language
Starring:Denzel Washington, Sanaa Lathan, Eva Mendes, Dean Cain, John Billingsley
The award-winning actor Denzel Washington brings to life his newest film, simply titled “Out of Time”. The beauty of the film is Denzel, playing as Matt Lee Whitlock, conveying the intensity of the film in convincing fashion.
When Whitlock, a respected police chief, finds out that the women he has been seeing is in need of money for a life saving operation, he comes to the rescue. Armed with drug money from a bust that he helped to make, he cast himself into the gray area of right and wrong when he gives Anne Harrison (Sanaa Lathan) money.
What he doesn’t understand is that he has cast himself into something much more sinister than what he thought he was getting into. The film lets Denzel unleash his acting skills as you almost visibly see the tangled webs materialize in front of his eyes. As they say, with knowledge comes power, and Whitlock does his best to rectify the situation, even though the foundations of his life are crumbling around him.
The film does a wonderful job of putting the action squarely on Denzel, and with convincing portrayals by Sanaa Lathan playing as Anne Merai Harrison, and Eva Mendes as his wife, it is almost absorbing.
The gray subject matter of the film puts Denzel in familiar territory. His character is not all good or all bad, but complex, much like his characters in Training Day, and John Q.
In all it is a good film to pass the time with.
