Thursday, April 5, 2007
Young actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt is quickly becoming the king of the neo-noir genre. But while he shows promise, he hasn’t had the chance to spread his wings because of taking roles in movies like The Lookout, his latest and blandest.
The movie follows Kansas City high school hockey star Chris Pratt (Gordon-Levitt), whose life is changed forever when he gets into a car accident. Now, he has minor trouble with motor functions, a terrible memory, lives with a blind roommate, Lewis (Jeff Daniels, the picture’s savior) and works as a janitor at a local bank.
Things are pretty monotonous for Chris until one night at a bar when he meets Gary (Matthew Goode). Gary lures Chris into friendship, only to tell him that he and his clan are planning on robbing a bank and need Chris’ special position to make things go over smoothly. But as the day of the robbery draws closer, Chris begins to have second thoughts and realizes that he has the power to make the operation a smashing success or a total disaster.
The Lookout isn’t a complete failure, but it barely succeeds. What’s sad is that the film constantly displays potential, but then drifts toward mediocrity. Screenwriter and first-time director Scott Frank had a great plot with some good characters, but apparently didn’t know where to go from there. The end result is a thriller with adequate suspense and drama, but one that lacks emotion.
Add on top of that a handful of characters and scenes that are totally inconsequential and the film falls even flatter on its face.
The biggest redeeming quality of the movie is the light and funny dialogue delivered by Daniels. But unfortunately, comedic relief does not a good crime drama make, forcing the film to fall back on the thrills that it just can’t muster.
★★★ out of 5 stars
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