Director Carl Franklin ("One False Move"), who also worked with Washington on "Devil in a Blue Dress" (1995), is frankly trying to manipulate the audience beyond the edge of plausibility. The early scenes seem to follow more or less possibly, but by the time Matt is hanging from a hotel balcony, or concealing incriminating telephone records, we care more about the plot than the characters; suspension of disbelief, always necessary in a thriller, is required here in wholesale quantities. But in a movie like "Out of Time" I'm not looking for realism, I'm looking for a sense of style brought to genre material.
Washington is one of the most likable of actors, which is essential to this character, preventing us from concluding that he's getting what he deserves. Mendes makes the ex-wife Alex into a curiously forgiving character, who feels little rancor for the straying Matt and apparently still likes him; maybe there would have been more suspense if she were furious with him. Saana Latham has a tricky role as Ann -- trickier the deeper we go into the plot -- and is plausible at many different speeds, and Dean Cain is convincingly vile as the violent husband. John Billingsley is Chae, the local medical examiner who is Matt's sidekick and supplies low-key, goofy support in some tight situations.
Another one of the movie's stars is its Florida location. It was photographed in and around Miami, Boca Grande and Cortez, and reminds us how many Hollywood crime movies depend on the familiar streets of Los Angeles (or Toronto). Banyon Key seems like a real place, sleepy and laid-back, where everybody knows one another and high school romances could still smolder. As the net of evidence tightens around the sheriff, it seems more threatening because there are few places for him to hide, and few players who don't know him.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7s7vGnqmempWnwW%2BvzqZmq52mnrK4v46orK1ln5t6tbXMnmRraGBo