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The Lookout

Score: 89%
Rating: R
Publisher: Miramax
Region: 1
Media: DVD/1
Running Time: 99 Mins.
Genre: Drama/Caper/Thriller
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
           Sound, English, French Audio

Subtitles: English, French, Spanish

Features:

  • "Behind the Mind of Chris Pratt" Featurette
  • "Sequencing The Lookout" Featurette
  • Audio Commentaries by Scott Frank (writer/director) and Alar Kivilo (director of photography)

The Lookout opens with four attractive teens, all dressed for prom, blazing down a darkened highway in a convertible Mustang. In one moment of youthful stupidity, a tragic car accident turns their worlds upside down. At the wheel and responsible for the wreck is Chris Pratt (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, "3rd Rock from the Sun"), and while he was a high school hockey star at that time, we fast-forward four years to the present when he is merely a night-time janitor for a local bank.

Sadly, Chris suffered a moderate traumatic head injury in the wreck and as such, he has trouble with memory, sequencing and other things we all take for granted. And he was the lucky one.

Chris attends classes at a Life Skills Center during the day and shares an apartment with Lewis (Jeff Daniels, "Dumb and Dumber"), a sarcastic blind guy. They share a dream of opening a restaurant one day together, but Chris can't seem to get past the present and feels like a loser. He soon falls prey to Gary (Matthew Goode, "Match Point"), a small-town hoodlum with big plans of bank robbery and Chris is just the chump to enlist. They meet at a local watering hole where Gary rescues Chris and his $20 from a crooked bartender and they hit it off. It is also here that Chris first spots the flirty Luvlee (Isla Fisher, "The Wedding Crashers"), also a friend of Gary's. Soon, Luvlee and Chris become an item and he becomes grafted into Gary's core group, learning of their plans to rob a bank, preferably the one where he works. It's harvest time in their area which means the bank funds are about to get infused with 2.5 million dollars, just ripe for Gary and his crew's pickin'. Chris gets on-board with the plan once Gary convinces him that it's the only way he'll ever break free of his wealthy parents and get any shred of his old life back. Sadly, Chris is gullible and believes Gary's credo - The one with the money is the one with the power. In fact, he jots this phrase down in his trusty notebook, the one he uses to remember everything important.

Chris gets cold feet on the night of the bank robbery, but has no way to turn back once the plan has been set into motion. Little does he know that Gary and his group have plans to hang him with the guilt for the whole bank job and then kill him and dump his body. Things don't go as planned (do they ever?), people get shot and havoc happens and soon it's up to Chris to rescue Lewis, who gets caught in the crossfire, so to speak.

While this movie doesn't have a Hollywood ending, it does end in a very satisfying way. It would have been ridiculous for Chris to all of a sudden be okay again and not have his head injury anymore, but that's simply not realistic and as was said in the featurette, "Behind the Mind of Chris Pratt," it would have been insulting to those who have head injuries. However, things do wrap up nicely.

The Lookout is touted as a heist film and in truth, it is, but not the typical caper type that I think of when I think of a heist film. It's definitely not your Italian Job or Ocean's Eleven variety. The bulk of this movie is spent on deep character development. Why is Chris the way he is? Joseph Gordon-Levitt does an excellent job as he plays confused and struggling Chris Pratt. Jeff Daniels is perfect as the crusty and sardonic Lewis, who helps and guides Chris, but not in a hand-out sort of way. Isla Fisher does well as the tart who lures Chris into his life of crime, although almost unknowingly.

Don't go into watching The Lookout as a action-packed thrill ride, but as a movie with a deep storyline and hefty character development. It's a really good movie, just based far more on story than action.



-Psibabe, GameVortex Communications
AKA Ashley Perkins

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