98 minutes • 2007 • USA • In English • Rated R (or language, some violence and sexual content)
At various times over the last decade, David Fincher, Sam Mendes, and Michael Mann were attached to direct Scott Frank’s screenplay for The Lookout , about a brain–damaged high school hockey stud who’s smooth–talked by distant acquaintances into robbing a small–town bank. That Frank—best known for straightening and sharpening the tangled lines of Elmore Leonard’s novels Get Shorty and Out of Sight —wound up directing The Lookout himself was the best thing that could have happened to his script. After all, it’s a story about how we tell ourselves stories to retain a tenuous grasp on sanity, and who better to guide us through it than a man obsessed with the process of tale–telling itself?
In truth, The Lookout ‘s a rather straightforward narrative: A kid is riding high till he’s brought low by a horrific accident that leaves him a shell of his former self. He spends years wrestling with pain and guilt, but can make no headway thanks to the fact that his head’s in the way; he can remember everything but keep nothing straight, not even his morning routine or where he keeps the can opener. His blind roommate (a bearded and bespectacled Jeff Daniels, looking strangely like The Dude) convinces him to treat his life as a short story, to write everything down in his notepad and to always begin at the end. “Can’t tell a story if you don’t know where it’s going,” says the roommate–turned–sage.
Scott Frank, however, begins at the beginning, with Chris Pratt (Joseph Gordon–Levitt) soaring at his highest, brightest moment: His wealthy old man (Bruce McGill) has just bought him a convertible sports car, which Chris drives into the dark, clear night accompanied by the ethereal Southern–rock strains of My Morning Jacket, his stunning blonde girlfriend, and another giggling couple. Chris kills the headlights, to woo and wow his girl with a sky full of fireflies. They laugh, sounding like every other high school jock and homecoming queen who believe themselves immortal—till their giggles are drowned out by the sound of crunched metal and shattered glass…
Full review, here (Related) .
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