The Lookout

Look, in the sky, its a drama, its a thriller, its a morality play, with a cliche ending!

The Lookout is all that and more. For better and for worse, though mostly for better.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays "Chris" a one-time high school hockey jock with a promising future, forestalled by a serious car accident.

We pick up the story of Chris' life four years after the accident, as he struggles to deal with the effects of some brain damage caused by the trauma years earlier.

He suffers from some loss of short-term memory, very minor cognitive impairment, and just a little less impulse control than is healthy in any adult.

Levitt does a great job at this stage of the movie selling us on how deeply frustrated his character feels. Perhaps more so than had he been left with more serious physical injuries. As he is ever so close to being the man he was, or was becoming, but somehow that is always just beyond reach.

As we meet Chris' family, his blind roommate, played by Jeff Daniels, largely to amusing comic effect, and some of the people he works with in his job as night janitor at a local bank;
Our feelings for this character grow deeper.

Enter an old acquaintance from High school (Gary), a new woman (Luvlee) to make Chris feel masculine again, and a plot to rob the very bank where Chris works.

Here we have the plot from which the movie takes its name, and Chris role in the scheme unfolds.

Without spoiling too much......everything builds wonderfully up to the night of the bank job.

Here the movie falters, just a bit.

In these last thirty minutes.......the hard won credibility of the film is diminished by director Scott's eagerness for a way too neat and dramatic finish.

Overall this film is far above average, particularly for something out of the U.S.

Its eminently watchable, with superb acting, it only falls short at the end...by tying the plot in a knot in order to get a more emotionally satisfying conclusion.

Definitely worth any cinephile's time, one of the three best in 2007 thus far.

Overall, this movie is an 8/10.

This film is currently in wide release across Canada, and can be found at the Carlton and
Canada Square cinemas in downtown Toronto and at many suburban locations.