"The Lookout" (2007) - Movie Review

In the trailer of “The Lookout” is slick and flashy reminded me some of the nightmares of watching “Smokin’ Aces” and the streak of “’trying to be cool and clever” movies like “Running Scared” and “Lucky Number Slevin”. I was begging not this one fall into the same pit fall. For the following reason I wanted this one to be good. Joseph Gordon-Levitt seems to be a creative and enthusiastic actor in the roles he takes. I did not like Greg Araki’s “Mysterious Skin” but the boldness Levitt took prompted me on his quest for experimental subjects.

And the movie started with young teenage couples going on a drive in a dark night over a desolated country road was another touch over the margin of the pitfalls. You know something is going to happen. Does it mean the end of that sequence miss to shock you? It freaked me out. From there on, with the voice over perfect and not cheesy by Levitt accompanies a story not about a heist but about a recovering personality. Heist just seems to be over the background of the Chris Pratt’s (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) post accident life.

Chris used to be the popular and mesmerizing kid of the school. Director Scott Frank does not show photographs or elaborate scenes but makes the other characters speak about how Chris was before the accident. Every one aspired to be him. His dad senses his next move in a chess board now. He carries the cold frame as that of the chilly bitter winter the movie back drop forms to. He looks fine but the accident left him with a moderate head injury. His co-ordination and correlation gets misplaced randomly. He is conscious of it and that agonize him even more than the disability of it. Chris’s injury is not visible but as we get to know him, it comes into light. He forgets miserably for starters. He makes notes of his chores and also the important things he wants to be remembered. Yet he keeps his key in the car locked. And he has the other key in his shoe. His charming days are gone and now makes note of a pick up line uttered by Gary (Mathew Goode) which works like a spell on a woman. Watch when he uses it the next time he is in the same bar and you can see how cold he is in that and we realize something inside him is still desperate for some other thing. At a first glance there would have been nothing tough or new for Levitt to come as a young kid with no visible disability. He manages to give it so easily as to not notice the difficulty of acting Chris. Everything is internal and characterized which makes it harder to grasp and react as some one like that.

Yes, the film centers on a heist. And yes, there are guns and shootouts. Yes, the film is stylish and slick. So was it the routine slick and shoot movie? No. They carefully construct the world around Chris. He lives with a blind room mate Lewis (Jeff Daniels) who is witty, enlightening and happens to light up any place. Chris apart from mopping the floor during his night shifts at the Bank spends considerable time with him. He also goes to the center which tries to help Chris in building the involuntary actions or talks he makes. Out there, he is given an exercise of writing the events of typical day. His narration repeats several times with slight changes in the action. They finish the movie with that as everyone expects but how apt and perfect it fits.

Jeff Daniels after a condescending irritating father and a husband in “The Squid and the Whale” comes up with a man guiding himself and his room mate. One cannot miss to thank a million to Scott Frank for staying true to his story. I was expecting the character of Luvlee (Isla Fisher) to pop up and ruin everything the movie built up. They terminate her from the story rightly and promptly. Her character lures Chris into the dungeons of the heist Gary plans with his crew and departs when it is needed, quite reasonably.

“The Lookout” is clever at times, not because it intentionally wants to, but the story demands it to be. The act of it is not pompous but truthful. Chris is not fine but not dumb either. He learns from the mistakes of his life and relives the tragedy when he does one more mistake. In the interview, Levitt says that director got a note to make this character better in the end. Levitt thanked the director for staying true and fair to the real life people with the same kind or worse injury. I felt it in every bit of it.