The Lookout
About ten minutes into The Lookout I started to get a little worried. I was afraid that we were going to have another Memento rip off on our hands. I was more than pleasantly surprised to find myself completely wrong. What could have easily been a film with a one note premise turned out be a sharp, well written character study.
Chris Pratt (Gordon-Levitt) was a star high school athlete until a car accident that was his fault leaves him with a brain injury. Now he suffers from memory loss and struggles to not only to physically get through the day, but also to get over the guilt of what happened to the passengers in the car. Limited by his disability, Chris works as a night janitor at a sleepy local bank. He has to make everyday into a systematic routine so that nothing goes awry. Everything runs smoothly until he meets Gary Spargo (Goode) and Luvlee Lemons (Fisher), who have plans of their own. They need his help in order rob the bank.
I was a big fan of last year’s Brick, which also starred Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He’s as good a young actor as there is working today. He plays Chris Pratt in such a way that he’s not really pandering for sympathy, which would have been easy to do. Instead he’s more of a tragic hero, who sees himself as flawed and guilty. Not only does he get across what it’s like for someone who once was an athlete and is now essentially trapped in his own body, but he also gets the guilt Chris carries for the accident as well.
The tiny supporting character touches help flesh this film out and give it life. There are little things that have little impact on the plot, but make a great deal of difference in how you feel towards these people. Jeff Daniels does an excellent job as Chris’s blind roommate, Lewis, who looks out for him. Lewis isn’t some cliché “wise old blind guy” but he knows the score and knows what it’s like to live with a disability. He doesn’t let it hold him back, but he is aware that there are those like Gary Spargo, who can take advantage of Chris given the opportunity. Mathew Goode’s Spargo is a scumbag of epic proportions. He exploits every one of Chris’s flaws to his advantage and does so with glee. Goode captures his charisma and single minded lack of conscience flawlessly.
What really helps make this film work is that Chris Pratt’s brain injury isn’t really used as a gimmick. A lesser screenwriter would have hung their hat there, but not Scott Frank. Instead, the driving force is how Spargo exploits the way this injury makes Chris feel about himself. He used to be a big man in high school, but now he’s just a janitor who relies on a blind man to take care of him. It’s all the more painful to be at the mercy of someone who is so obviously disabled. Spargo on the other hand is charismatic, has money and even women. He’s everything that Chris was and wants to be. Chris’s physical ability is what used to define him not only as a person, but as a man. After the accident that has been taken away and he is left feeling impotent, which just makes it even easier for Spargo and especially Luvlee to exploit it and convince Chris to help.
A lot of people are going to miss seeing The Lookout, which is a damn shame. At a time of year when studios are dumping the last of their crap before the summer, it’s nice to see something with some substance. Scott Frank is a talented screenwriter and for his directorial debut took what could have been your typical bank heist picture and gave us they best movie of the year so far.
The Grade
- Story: A
- Acting: B+
- Visuals: B+
- Originality: A
- Enjoyability: A
- Overall: A
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