Movie Review: The Lookout (2007)

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Young TV actors have a tough time breaking out after their TV series ends. For every success story (Michael J. Fox, for example), there are countless others who toil in low-budget films or even ditch acting altogether (The entire cast of Saved by the Bell, for example). In the past few years, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is starting to show that he may be more Michael J. Fox than Saved By the Bell.

In The Lookout, Gordon-Levitt plays Chris Pratt, a once promising high school hockey player who now can only hold work as a janitor after a horrific car accident robs him of his ability to sequence events correctly and makes him blurt out inappropriate comments (such as telling someone he just met that he wants to see her naked). Pratt's inability to sequence events or remember the placement of objects is so bad that he can't even make his own dinner, and instead has to rely on his blind roommate, Lewis (Jeff Daniels).

Pratt's life is changed, however, when he meets Gary Spargo (Matthew Goode), who claims to have gone to the same high school as Pratt. Preying on Pratt's inability to perceive events correctly and his anger towards his father's view of Pratt as a lost cause, Spargo enlists Pratt as the lookout man for an upcoming bank robbery that he's planning.

The Lookout relies heavily on the performance of its actors, and in that aspect it does not disappoint. Gordon-Levitt plays Pratt well, generating genuine affection for the character and pulling off the consequences of his brain injury admirably. Daniels and Goode both play their characters to the best of their abilities, although the script doesn't allow for too many multi-dimensional characters besides Chris Pratt.

The story, however, is fairly straightforward and littered with obvious holes, something atypical of writer Scott Frank (Get Shorty, Out of Sight), who makes his directorial debut with The Lookout. Nothing comes as a surprise throughout the story's run, and the ending is disappointing at best. In addition, the female characters (including the main love interest, played by Isla Fisher) are almost completely inessential to the plot, and some characters seem to come and go without any real rhyme or reason. One character even disappears with about half an hour left in the movie and never returns. Their absence is not adequately explained, and constitutes possibly the largest plot gaff that I saw.

The Lookout performed somewhat poorly in the box office, which is a shame, for despite the plot holes it was a moderately engaging movie with a lot of promise. Perhaps it could have been marketed better (the bank robbery that is implied to be the film's catalyst doesn't happen until near the end of the movie), or perhaps just a little bit more needed to be added to the movie, a few extra minutes to tie some loose ends together. As it is, The Lookout is a very good movie that missed out on the potential to be great.

Rating: 7/10