The Lookout (2007)

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Matthew Goode

One of us is proud to present The Lookout. We will leave it to you to read below and find out who likes and who doesn't. It is rated R for language, violence, and some sex (which is overheard, but there's a peek at a couple of bums both male and female).

Mark-
I really wanted to like this movie, mostly because I am becoming more and more of a fan of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, but unfortunately this movie fails in far too many places. After a relatively small $16 million budget, one would think a film staring Gordon-Levitt, Isla Fisher, and Jeff Daniels would easily be able to earn back its production costs, but seeing that most of you are probably thinking I’ve never heard of this movie, the less than $5 million of total earnings confirms this films lack of noteworthiness.

The film begins with main character Chris (Gordon-Levitt) being a stupid teenager and causing a horrific car crash that kills two of his friends, leaves himself with severe memory damage, and another friend with an amputated leg. The film then flashes forward three years and we see the memory challenges that Chris has to live with on a daily basis. Chris lives with his blind friend Lewis (Daniels) whom he was matched up with through an agency of unknown specificity. Chris goes to classes to try and help rehabilitate his mental functioning, and works as a night janitor at a small town bank. When Chris suddenly runs into someone who knew him from the past, and is introduced to former dancer Luvlee Lemons (Fisher), and yes that is her characters name in this film, we shortly thereafter learn that their friendliness towards Chris has an alternative motive behind it.

There are so many holes in this film's plot that at times I was simply wondering what purpose was served by certain characters and scenes of the film. My greatest example of this is with Luvlee, and although we see her character leaving, we have no idea why or where she is going.

This film had some promise with its general conception, but unfortunately the lack of development beyond the general causes this movie to fail. 2 out of 5 *’s.

My Random Thought For The Lookout: Luvlee lemons...really??? That’s the best they could come up with?

Dan -
This movie intrigued me from the first time I heard about it. Not only is it a movie about a bank robbery, which is always a plus, but instead of all the parties involved going along with it (think Heat or Ocean's 11) the main character is manipulated into it. The mastermind behind the robbery is Matthew Goode, and you may remember him from such movies as Watchmen (he was Ozzymandias) and Leap Year (he was the Irish guy that Amy Adams falls for). He exploits Chris' injury as well as the insecurities he has about it. Side note: For being an Englishman, Matthew Goode has one of the more convincing American accents I've heard from a foreigner.

As far as movies go where a character has memory issues, this is second only to Memento in my opinion. That film is masterful in its approach of the effects of memory loss and the plot structure itself. If you haven't seen it, you need to. It's made by Christopher Nolan, who directed the most recent entries in the Batman franchise as well as Inception and The Prestige. Can you see a trend in the movies this guy likes to do? They all, including the Batman movies, mess with your head in one way or another.

I think the appeal of this character was that (MILD SPOILER ALERT!) he doesn't have a miraculous recovery at the end of the movie. There are movies where a character gets amnesia with a hit on the head, and then another hit will jar his memory back to normal. I appreciated that the movie allowed this to be (somewhat) grounded in reality. The ending was a little too convenient and tied up most loose ends in a neat metaphorical bow, but at least it doesn't solve all of the problems that were addressed which was nice.

I must not be too picky. Mark doesn't seem as generous in his star rating of the movies we watch as I am. Maybe that's because most of the movies we watch are ones that come from my Netflix queue or my personal DVD library instead of his. Or maybe it's because I look to movies for entertainment as much as I do for thought provoking commentary on society (i.e. fun movies get decent ratings from me even if they aren't good/great movies). It isn't intended to be one-sided or selfish that I pick most of the movies. And if it comes across that way I apologize first to Mark, and then to our readers. I promise from now on that Mark can choose the movies equally as much as I do.

I give this movie 4 stars out of 5. Admittedly, I am a kind of a sucker for heist movies, but I loved how the brain injury facilitated the heist. This movie also had Isla Fisher and I'm a sucker for her too.