The Lookout

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

The Lookout is a fairly entertaining crime thriller, boosted by a couple of strong performances. It's about a young, brain damaged janitor who is sort of seduced in assisting a robbery at the bank he works at. He's a regular, good-looking guy, of normal intelligence, but has serious memory problems due to a car acident four years earlier. So, I guess it's a little like a less gimmicky version of Memento, what with the brain damaged guy getting caught up in a neo-noir sorta story.

Joseph Godon-Levitt, as the lead, is pretty good. The character is a little more sympathetic than characters in these movies usually are, because of his condition. There's a certain poignancy to the way everyone treats him like he's retarded, even though he's in most ways a completely normal person. Jeff Daniels steals the movie as the main character's best friend, and Matthew Goode from Match Point is also memorable as a sinsiter but seductive criminal.

I think the writer/director, Scott Frank, had his heart more in creating some interesting characters than he does in telling a good crime yarn. So, it makes for a decent character study, but is more run-of-the-mill as a thriller. Maybe he wanted to make a movie about a guy dealing with brain damage, but figured no one would want to see a straight drama. Dunno. It was still, overall, an entertaining enough movie.