Reviews

The Lookout

Noirish notes

By TOM MEEK | March 29, 2007

2.5 Stars

VIDEO: Watch the trailer for The Lookout.

Chris Pratt (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brendan in Brick) has it made: he’s a stud, he has a rich father, and he can score a goal from anywhere on the ice. Or he could until an act of hubris (dumb-ass car accident) left him scared and with a few mental tics — they call it “sequencing issues,” but all the notebook flipping and starting over again feels ripped out of Memento. Languishing in remorse, Chris rooms with blind guy Lewis (Jeff Daniels), who’s in the same learning-to-live-on-your-own program, and toils at mcjobs until he meets shady operator Gary (Matthew Goode) and a swank piece of ass named Luvlee (Wedding Crashers’ Isla Fisher). Gary coaxes Chris into assisting in a bank heist. From there matters become predictable and clumsy, and Chris isn’t all that sympathetic. Still, Goode’s bad guy beguiles, and first-time director Scott Frank, who penned Out of Sight and Minority Report, shapes some sharp noirish notes.

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