Denzel Washington has always been an actor I have great respects for. He has starred in some great movies and always seem to take his roles seriously. I had not heard about Out of Time before, but it sparked my interest due to the cast and what seemed to be an interesting story.
The story is fairly often used and not that original. Someone is killed and the main character discovers that all the evidence leads to him. So he must find out who the real killer is before he himself is caught. It is not the story that makes this movie interesting, but the execution. We start of with a longer than normal introduction of the main characters and get to know them, then when the murders happen, the movie accelerates and the thriller aspects of the movie really kicks in. From there and almost to the end the movie moves at a very fast pace and it is at times hard to keep track of everything.
Denzel Washington pulls of a decent performance as police chief Matthias Lee Whitlock although it is not one of his best performances. Eva Mendes is equally decent, but overall the acting is not as good as I was hoping for. In addition there are several counter-intuitive plot turns and although the twist in the end came as a surprise, I was left with a feeling that the whole story would have been more realistic if Whitlock just explained everything from the start. This would of course remove the whole story of the movie, but all the hassle he has to go trough to prove his innocence seems a bit fruitless.
I did like the directing and editing. The opening title sequence was very cool and one of the better I have seen, the colors used fit the Florida setting and there are some beautiful shots of local Florida. There is one more thing I would like to comment on and that is one of the sex scenes. When was the last time you had sex with all your clothes on?
Out of Time is an entertaining thriller, but nothing more than that. It will probably leave your brain after a few weeks as just another movie. I did like the fast paced part and Denzel was not bad, but the movie will leave you with a feeling that everything that happened could have been prevented. 7/10