‘The Lookout’

The protagonist’s motives and abilities may be questionable, and the supporting characters are paper-thin, but it’s still hard not to like Scott Frank’s crime drama.

By: Elise Nakhnikian
   Like its protagonist, Chris Pratt (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), The Lookout isn’t altogether convincing, but you can’t help but like it.
   Chris is a former golden boy whose Midas touch switches into reverse after his reckless driving causes a fatal wreck. He survives, but a brain injury leaves him severely impaired. Nothing comes easy anymore, though everything used to.
   A high school hockey star and babe magnet who was hurtling toward greatness when he ran into a combine on a Kansas back road, he now shares a utilitarian apartment with a friend and works as a night-shift custodian at a bank. He dreams of becoming a teller, but the bank manager won’t promote him — and you can’t entirely blame him. Like Memento’s memory-impaired hero, Leonard, Chris can’t be counted on to remember things without consulting his notes, and he has a hard time figuring out the proper sequence of events. He also has a Tourette’s-like tendency to blurt out whatever’s on his mind, however profane or inappropriate it may be.
   One of the best things in the script is the way people keep patronizing Chris, even the most well-meaning dropping hurtful remarks that register in the dimming of Gordon-Levitt’s soulful eyes. Chris’ wealthy, Type A parents can’t see beyond his limitations either, trapping him inside what President Bush has called the "soft bigotry of low expectations." So when Gary Spargo (Matthew Goode), a lowlife who knows his story, sets out to exploit his ache to "be who I was," Chris — like Leonard — is pitiably pliable, quickly agreeing to help Gary rob the bank where he works.
   But the similarities to the Nolan brothers’ twisty, tough-minded thriller end there. For one thing, this is the kind of movie where you see the bullets coming a mile off, as plot points are conscientiously foreshadowed and people keep talking about how to tell stories – including this one. Maybe that’s why almost none of the scenes carry a strong sense of menace or dread: You’re never allowed to forget that you’re watching a movie.
The freshman-essay structure ("here’s what I’m about to tell you/Here’s what I’m telling you/Here’s what I just said") may also explain why this movie feels a bit sluggish, though at 99 minutes it’s not overlong. It also doesn’t help that nearly all the supporting characters are paper-thin, with the exception of Chris’s wonderfully nurturing, guy’s-guy roommate, Lewis (played by a bearlike Jeff Daniels).
But the main problem is that it’s not clear just what Chris’ impairment consists of. We get a lot of detail – the Tourette’s thing, the spotty memory, a tendency to lock his keys in his car, etc. – but we also hear about how he’s been improving, and we see him use coping mechanisms, like his ubiquitous notepad, that seem to allow him to compensate pretty effectively. And where the makers of Memento unspoiled their story in reverse to make us experience some of Leonard’s disorientation, writer/director Scott Frank’s narrative is strictly linear, giving us no help in getting inside Chris’ head.
We don’t always need to know what the protagonist of the movie we’re watching knows, but we do have to know how he’d react when he gets into a jam. When Dirty Harry asks, "Do you feel lucky today?" we don’t know any more than the "punk" he chased down whether Harry’s gun is empty. But we are certain that, if there were a bullet left and the criminal tried to run, Harry would happily kill him, and it’s that knowledge that gives the scene its iconic power. Similarly, we knew Memento’s Leonard would kill anyone he believed to be his wife’s killer — and so did the people manipulating him, which is what made him so easy to toy with.
   But The Lookout doesn’t tell us enough about how Chris’ brain works or how he feels for us to predict what he’ll do. That makes it hard to buy it — or to care as much as we might — when he does something dangerous. The always appealing Gordon-Levitt (of Mysterious Skin) invests Chris with his own sensitivity and air of sweet melancholy. You root for him, but you never know quite what to expect of him.
   Why does he fall so easily for Gary’s bait? Has his brain injury impaired his judgment too, or is he just so desperate for a sense of belonging and a girlfriend that he’d throw in with anyone who tossed him those bones? Goode, the hunky Brit of Match Point and Chasing Liberty, makes Gary creepily charismatic, following in countryman Christian Bale’s footsteps as a credibly coldhearted American psycho. Still, his entourage is so skanky and his MO so patently manipulative that you wonder why Chris gets taken in.
   We’re also mystified during a crucial scene toward the end of the movie when Chris claims to have forgotten a key piece of information. Could that be true or is he bluffing? Or, as Gary puts it, "Are you that dumb or are you that smart?"
   Frank seems to want to leave us guessing about that central question. And that left me — not quite cold, but lukewarm.
Rated R for language, some violence and sexual content