The Lookout (2007)

bargain bin bound

The only thing that happens in the first 45 minutes is that you learn to dislike everyone in the film. Jeff Daniels chooses to play Jeff Bridges' Dude character from Big Lebowski. That in itself is amusing for a few minutes. There is no "twist" at the end. I'd say its more of a thunk. May 20, 2008

Familiar Yet New

A wholly original but -- at the same time -- familiar film, THE LOOKOUT has that bank heist noir feel with a human twist.

I started searching out Scott Frank films (writer and director of The Lookout) after watching Get Shorty many years back. His snappy dialogue and unique look at `fish-out-of-water' characters caught my attention and I've been pleased with his most, if not all, of his work.

Add to this film the talents of relative newcomer Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Brick) and veteran Jeff Daniels (Good Night, and Good Luck) and I was intrigued ...to say the least.

The familiar element is the bank heist reminiscent of The Squeeze (1978) with Lee Van Cleef. The unfamiliar comes from Chris Pratt played by the aforementioned Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He's damaged goods. Not just mentally but physically. Involved in a car crash that killed several friends, injured another, and left Chris with a traumatic brain injury, the audience is left to ponder what would have become of an all-star athlete who now has serious lapses in memory and can only hold down a janitorial job at a local bank.

Living with another handicapped man named Lewis (Jeff Daniels), the two are an odd, disabled pair. Lewis helps keep Chris on-track with his brain-injured therapy, while Chris plods along trying to make sense of the changes in his life that aren't really changes at all ...just problems with memory. His frustrations are palpable, including his problems he has with his father who doles out guilt money only as he sees fit.

Into the picture comes a group of bank robbers with their eyes on Chris. Included in the group is a lovely young lady named ...well ...Luvlee (Isla Fisher). Gaining Chris' trust (and sexual advances) Luvlee soon reveals her true nature. Handing Chris into the deadly hands of her cohort Gary (Matthew Goode, Match Point), Chris finds himself at the center of the heist at the bank where he works and stuck without a way out. Or does he have one?

The fact that the audience is left guessing as to the depth of Chris' brain damage is a nice ending. How much he actually knows of what he's doing and why is an unusual turn on a familiar film road. The weaving in and out of the night of Chris' deadly car crash with his current no-win situation is pulled off exceptionally well and had me glued to my seat. And Jeff Daniels' masterful portrayal of a blind man with a set of chops also added immensely to the film's success. And Luvlee is pretty nice to look at, too (wink!).

A good heist film that has helped relaunch the genre in a new direction ...far removed from things like the OCEAN'S films. May 17, 2008

See this movie.

I watched The Lookout, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jeff Daniels, Matthew Goode, and Isla Fisher, this week. WOW. Where was the buzz about this film? It came out last year, and I'd honestly hardly heard of it until a few weeks ago.

Chris Pratt (Gordon-Levitt) is a popular high school student. His family is wealthy, he's the star of the school hockey team, and he's dating a beautiful girl. A horrific car accident, however, leaves him with a serious brain injury (that he's still trying to cope with) and two deaths on his conscience. After much rehab, Chris is living a lonely life as the night janitor at a bank. He lives in an apartment with Lewis (Daniels), a blind man with an eccentric personality.

Having a non-alcoholic beer at a local bar one night, Chris is approached by Gary Spargo (Goode), who apparently went to high school with him. Spargo befriends him, introducing Chris to Luvlee Lemons (Fisher), with whom he strikes up a romantic relationship. Before long, though, the jig is up. Chris realizes that Gary is only softening him up in order to gain his participation in a robbery of the bank. With Gary's persuasion of power and a better life, Chris agrees to help.

Gordon-Levitt is amazing in this film, and the script is a thing of beauty. Daniels plays a role different from what I'm used to seeing him in, and he does very well with it. I was impressed with this film, and particularly with the character of Chris.

I am normally the person in the audience shouting at characters that make bad decisions. (As in, "Noooooo! You KNOW that is wrong! What are you doing??!! Stop! Stop right now and walk out of there!) But with this film, it is not so easy to judge. Chris had everything. And now he feels that he has nothing. And he can't concentrate. And he can't even cook for himself, because he can't seem to put all the pieces together needed to open cans of tomatoes, boil pasta water, etc. He has lost so much. And he's still so young. And Gary comes in, smooth-talker that he is, and Chris wants so badly to believe that he can recapture who he was that he falls for it. I totally understood why Chris would have participated in the heist. I couldn't blame him.

This is not a predictable script. I honestly didn't know what would happen next. Will Chris get out of this caper alive? Will he end up with the money? Will he rediscover himself? There are no pat answers (which is alot like life, I guess).

At any rate, see this movie. I really enjoyed it, and I think you will, too. There is some violence, but (in my opinion) it isn't the gory, gratuitous kind. May 11, 2008

SCOTT FRANK, OPUS 1

*** 2007. Written and directed by Scott Frank. A student who had a terrible car accident four years before, suffers from loss of memory. A gang wants to use him when its members learn that he works in a bank as night watch. Original script but average result if we except the mood of the film. In fact, the director uses only a few sets - the apartment, the bank, the house, the bar - for his characters who otherwise seem to wander through a ghost town, as if they were only characters of the hero's memory. A DVD zone rental only. April 26, 2008

nice surprise

The reviews had been good, so I decide to rent it. The production (camera work, lighting, acting, screenplay, music, etc) was much better than I expected. It's an interesting collection of characters, good suspense, and not overly graphic. Well worth checking out. April 24, 2008

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