The Lookout: Great Drama, Short Thriller

I would watch The Lookout again, just not for the same reasons I watched it the first time. The movie centers on Chris Pratt's life, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The movie starts with a car accident, leaving Chris with a brain injury, causing expanded memory loss and emotional outbursts. His once-promising future is now a cleaning job at a bank. That is until he meets up with some friends from high school he can't remember and developes a love life. The joy is short-lived as he quickly finds out they intend to involve him in a bank heist.

From the trailers, you would think this is a drawn out thriller involving guns, made complicated by memory loss. Instead, the action is short-lived, one-sided, and saved for the late end of the movie. As a thriller, it takes too long to pick up suspense, and end with too little, and too fast of a climax. In addition, it leaves loose ends with certain characters, creating less closure than needed for a film like this one

As a drama, the film excells. The true catch of the movie is Gordon-Levitt's acting and Scott Frank's directing. Every shot in the film shows either positioning and posing for the manipulation of Chris, or to help luminate the fragmented, disjointed way of Chris' life. Gordon-Levitt fills out the other end, picking up Chris' mentality in every scene, showing complexities of his disabilities in every way; from guilt and family issues, to developing self-control and rising above his difficulties. The movie is really about Chris trying to raise above challenges while others take advantage of them.

Beside Chris in dealing with his troubles is his blind roommate, played in an exceptional performance by Jeff Daniels. Daniels plays the wiser-by-experience friend who can partially "see" Chris' new-found friends as what they are. Behind Chris is his misunderstanding parents, trying to find the boy he was before his accident and not coping with who he is after the accident. In front of Chris is his past, facing guilt for the others hurt or killed in the accident he blames himself for.

As it progresses, Chris faces conflicting realizations about friends, beliefs towards his disability, and how to move on in his life. Then everything changes as the bank robbery unfolds and something goes wrong. By this point, you already feel for Chris' life, and it takes some serious turns to keep your attention.

Overall, great drama, strong cast, and a different kind of problem for a central character. However, the loose end gets annoying once you notice it, the action scenes are nothing special, and the bank heist alone is not enough to thrill you. Personally, if you enjoyed Out of Sight or The Interpreter, both also written by Scott Franks, then you'd enjoy this movie as well, if not better. I'd buy it on DVD. Maybe not the week it comes out, but I'd still buy it.

Thanks,
Jack.