Monday, July 21, 2008

The Lookout


Chris Pratt (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a star high school athlete with a beautiful girlfriend and everything going for him. Then a car wreck that’s his own fault leaves him with a head injury that forces him to relearn nearly everything about his life. He winds up living with a blind roommate (Jeff Daniels) and working as a janitor in a small-town bank in Kansas.

With a set-up like that, this movie could have easily been a heartwarming, Seventies movie-of-the-week style drama . . . but no. Instead, writer-director Scott Frank turns it into a gritty, very well-written crime yarn, as a gang of crooks plays on Chris’s diminished capacity to enlist him in their efforts to rob the bank where he works. How it all plays out from there isn’t all that surprising, but it’s well-acted, well-directed, and extremely suspenseful in places. THE LOOKOUT is one of the best films I’ve seen so far this year, and if you haven’t seen it yet I highly recommend it.

6 comments:

pattinase (abbott) said...

I thought this was a terrific movie. Joseph Gordon-Leavitt picks excellent films and never gives a bad performance.

Randy Johnson said...

I haven;t seen this one, but have heard many good things about it.
It made me think of another Joseph Gordon-Leavitt film I really liked: BRICK.
Have you seen that one?

James Reasoner said...

We started watching BRICK once but didn't finish it because we couldn't understand a word they were saying. Probably ought to give it a try again. Nowadays I just turn the captions on before we even start watching most movies. At least the current ones. Funny thing, I can understand all the dialogue in old movies without any trouble.

misappear said...

Good movie, especially for one I'd never heard of. I rarely make it to the theatre (takes too much time) and these types of recommendations are always valuable. Gracias

pattinase (abbott) said...

BRICK was hard to understand. I used the subtitles.

pattinase (abbott) said...

tomorrow?