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THE LOOKOUT
Thrillers are generally pot-boiling stories of greed and desire, which is why it's refreshing to view an entry in this AARP-eligible genre that expends just as much energy on depicting inertia and statis as it does on car chases and double-crosses. Without obviously reaching to transcend its modest ambitions--those of a low-key heist movie enriched by fair helpings of character nuance and brisk humor--The Lookout also becomes a meditation on living in the face of regret and disability with an odd, cathartic power that sneaks up on the viewer, due largely to the intimate, textured performance of "Third Rock From the Sun" star turned indie godlet Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Deftly channeling the craftsmanship and wit he’s brought to screenwriting efforts for some of the era's most formidable Hollywood directors, Scott Frank’s directorial debut is a low-simmering thriller whose rhythms are reminiscent of minor Chabrol or mid-career Melville. This crime movie about a not particularly sympathetic wounded soul drowning in his own melancholia and whose problems aren’t neatly wrapped up by the final frame for the most part eschews tired montages of intricate heist planning, stakeouts, and safe-cracking in favor of exploring a life put on indefinite hold.
Inhabiting the world of a psychologically damaged young adult--as he did to great effect in Gregg Araki’s Mysterious Skin--Levitt plays Chris Pratt, a high school hockey star and pampered scion of an elite Kansas City family turned vaguely willing accomplice to a band of small-time bank robbers. In the film’s opening passage, Chris, recklessly driving with his lights off in order to impress his girlfriend with his knowledge of route 24’s sublime, lightning-bug-infested nighttime skies, kills his teammate and another woman in a horrific, preventable accident.
Cut to four years later, and Chris is a broken young man; permanent frontal-lobe damage has left him with short-term memory loss, an inability to perform simple tasks or to relate to the opposite sex with the temporary inhibitions required for seduction. A shell of the wealthy preppy golden child we briefly glimpsed, he lives with the anguish of someone who isn’t the person he once was and unable to fit comfortably into the identity he was forced into by a wicked twist of fate. Marginally employed as a late-night bank janitor, largely disconnected from his financially supportive but emotionally distant family, he lives in a dicey two-bedroom flat with Lewis (Jeff Daniels), a razor-sharp, middle-aged blind man with a nose for trouble and bad puns, who shares with Chris the modest desire to open a restaurant (“Lou’s Your Lunch” is their name for the establishment). An early scene with his counselor (Carla Gugino) informs us that Chris can sometimes grasp the charmer he once was (his response to her suggestion that he try to find a girlfriend is priceless and unprintable). However, he is only able to function by maintaining a grim, flavorless routine supported by reminder notes (a la Guy Pearce’s similarly disabled hero in Memento). The routine also includes frequent visits to the site of the accident and to a local skating rink where he catches daily glimpses of his ex-girlfriend Kelly (Laura Vandervoort), who lost her leg in the accident.
Chris makes an easy target for Gary Spargo (British actor Matthew Goode, completely transformed from his Rupert Everettesque turn in Matchpoint), a bright-eyed, wiry crook who wants to bust into the bank Chris cleans in order to loot the farm subsidy money that pours in annually. Gary strikes up a casual acquaintance with Chris at the local bar and introduces him to Luvlee Lemons (Isla Fisher), an ex-stripper who seduces the sexually frustrated Chris in order to win him over to Gary’s scheme. Fisher doesn't get much out of her thankless, underwritten femme fatale role, but her banality and warm, underwhelming quality mesh well with the midwestern exurban locale (Winnipeg doubling for Kansas City).
Scott Frank and DP Alar Kivilo (who also shot the outstanding midwestern thriller A Simple Plan) together capture the dichotomy of rural and urban character that midwestern cities often have, while giving us a sense of the gloom that pervades Pratt’s existence. Shot in HD on the Panavision Genesis, The Lookout, with a few notable exceptions, has a filmy texture that wasn’t evident in Brian Singer’s Superman Returns or Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto (both shot with the Genesis), but its HD aesthetic isn’t as audacious or as neatly wedded to the picture’s thematic concerns as David Fincher’s Zodiac or Michael Mann’s Miami Vice. Ironically, both were attached to direct The Lookout at different points. One wonders what either of those iconoclasts would have done with an unassuming script like The Lookout, but Scott Frank, unlike his protagonist, was obviously the right man for the job.
Brandon Harris
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