Column:

'Lookout' open to interpretation

By Dan Moore

Published April 6, 2007

"The Lookout" is a thriller that takes place in Kansas, which would appear to be a contradiction at first glance. Furthermore, there are no police experts, no leering, maniacal genius psychopaths and no ticking time bombs. The protagonist is a brain-damaged night janitor. Out of all these unassuming pieces, first-time director Scott Frank has constructed an excellent reminder that suspense can be created without resorting to the extravagant or fantastic.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as Chris Pratt, a former prep hockey superstar whose life as he knew it ended in a prom night car accident. In the daytime, he goes to classes designed to help him "sequence" events, and at night, he sweeps up at a tiny bank. He has a kind circle of friends but is unable to deal with the condescending way they sometimes treat him.

Pratt's job means he's the perfect mark for a group of barely competent would-be bank robbers. They give him women and the promise of money and power, and though his gut instinct is to distrust them, he's unable to resist the allure of being treated like a full human being. Once his involvement in the robbery goes south, he has to prove his worth and his abilities, which he's desired all along.

Frank, a career screenwriter, has filmed this movie the way his protagonist sees it: Chris Pratt is forced into a familiar routine, so he can remember what to do, and certain scenes are repeated over and over. Several times we see Pratt sitting on a bench outside, watching one of the girls who was in the accident with him walking someplace. Never heavy-handed, the movie leaves us to interpret scenes like this ourselves.

Gordon-Levitt imbues his performance with the same undercurrent of just-repressed anger he displayed as a high school private eye in "Brick." Pratt lives in the shadow of the only thing he remembers completely — his triumphant past — and the movie expertly reveals only the bare minimum back-story. Throughout the film we catch glimpses of things from the past, including a wheelchair, his therapist and his family, that the film doesn't bother to explain. We only see their significance in terms of Gordon-Levitt's reactions to them. His performance is so good, and so unlike the mentally-challenged-role-as-Oscar-grab status quo, that it almost comes as an unpleasant surprise when the suspense plot is set into motion. It's as if they had filmed the first half of "The Sun Also Rises" only to make the second half about Brett Ashley running a diamond-heist ring or spying on the Mob.

But this plot is so tightly woven that we forgive its intrusion, and by the end, it says as much about this damaged, interesting character as a slow-moving character piece would. Viewers are left in suspense not only about the bank robbery but also about the main character's ability and desire to function as a shell of himself when all he can remember and all he wants is when he was whole.