Anthony's Film Review - The Lookout (2007)

A drama about moving on from tragedy and stepping into danger again...

The Lookout stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Chris, a high school kid whose life is changed forever. He is driving with his girlfriend beside him and some friends in the backseat. There's nothing too wild going on. Just two friends celebrating the joys of life. It all ends with a deadly car crash that kills the passengers and leaves Chris with serious brain damage.

Tragedies like this are never easy to deal with. Chris is lucky to be alive, but there's a disability he must live with: short-term memory loss. In his apartment, he has labels everywhere to remind him of even the most basic and routine things. By day, he goes to a school designed to help the disabled acquire skills for the real world. By night, he is a janitor at a bank after business hours, though he shows determination in becoming a bank teller by practicing counting fake bills. He also recalls his high school hockey days when he plays with a urinal puck and mop while a hockey game is heard from a radio nearby.

Besides his daily routine, he also lives with a roommate named Lewis (Jeff Daniels), who has blindness as his own disability. He also meets a few new people, particularly Marty (Morgan Kelly) and a former stripper named Luvlee (Isla Fisher). Basically, the first half of the film is really about this young man's life after the crash. It slowly transitions into the second half about a bank robbery about to go down that Chris is pulled into. In this part of the film, suspense takes over.

The theme of the second half is said by one of the robbers: whoever has the money has the power. That's the motive behind the bank heist. In the aftermath, it is Chris who takes possession of the money. Therefore, he has the power, as if gaining power after being powerless for so long. Otherwise, this part of the movie doesn't take too many turns but still ends nicely.

Even with a connection between the two halves, I felt like watching two almost entirely different movies. It's not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes you need to have two different genres to make it a bit more original. It only works, though, if they're connected together well enough. Here, it's kind of loose. Each half is presented well enough on its own. It's just when it's side by side that there might be a slight clash or gap between the two. In any event, the film averages out to a 6/10 on my rating scale.

Anthony's Rating:

For more information about The Lookout, visit the Internet Movie Database.