The Lookout
Director: Scott Frank
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jeff Daniels, Matthew Goode
Rated: R for language, some violence and sexual content
Duration: 1 hr. 42 min
Plot: A once-promising high school athlete (Gordon-Levitt) finds his life altered following a tragic accident. As he tries to maintain a normal life, he takes a job as a janitor at a bank, where he’s targeted by a crew of locals who are looking to pull off a heist.
Check Prices for The Lookout on DVD and Blu-ray

My Review: I wish someone had been looking out for me when I decided to rent this recent release. While RottenTomatoes is giving The Lookout an 88% approval rating I’m dumbfounded as to what earned it the same rating as the comedic genius of Superbad. The Lookout is a small budget, first time director film with several good actors that meander through a nearly two hour drag-on. I found nothing redeeming in the story as we’ve seen every single aspect done before and better. You’ve got the promising high school kid who causes a terrible accident and kills his friends leaving him in a damaged state. You’ve got the rich family that doesn’t know how to accept their changed son. Then there is, of course, the bank robber gone awry and the protagonist seeking redemption. After stapling all these together the movie comes to an extremely anti-climatic narrated conclusion that fails to provide a drop of satisfaction for the audience that managed to stay awake.

The Lookout stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt who seems to have dropped off the face of the Earth following his stint on 3rd Rock some years back as well as a similarly underemployed Jeff Daniels. Both actors give great performances and are the redeeming aspect of this dry film. There’s also a short series of appearances by Isla Fisher (Wedding Crashers, Hot Rod) who adds a “hard to decipher her motivation” character to the mix. The acting really was the tent pole here as everyone contributed well, but that alone just wasn’t enough to save the film for me.

While a movie doesn’t have to be visually exciting to entertain me it does need to have at least some sort of brain churning intellectual offering. The Lookout completely missed this for me. We know what’s going to happen which usually synchs up with what should happen to best suit the story and its characters. There’s just no catch or angle that the characters really use to their advantage despite what should have been plenty of options. Even Gordin-Levitt’s impaired mental state of short term memory issues adds only a short scene of value. Memento did all of this so much better and more effectively.

I’m strongly going to encourage you to pass on The Lookout despite its very high ratings from RT. I really can’t figure out why this was so heavily praised by the critics when the audiences clearly let this one pass ($2 million in the opening weekend, #11 spot). If you’re one of the folks that enjoyed this wanna-be thriller then please tell me why as I’m at a total loss.

Side note: Gordin-Levitt seems to be a near dead-ringer for Heath Ledger these days.

Rating: 2/5 stars
High Point: Jeff Daniels’ supporting performance
Low Point: So slow, so very slow and boring

Check Prices for The Lookout on DVD and Blu-ray

The Lookout - Movie Trailer:

Check out the rest of our Movie Reviews.

Feed Readers: click here to view the video