The Lookout (2007)

Director:

Scott Frank

Writer (WGA):

Scott Frank (written by)

Release Date:

30 March 2007 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

Whoever has the money has the power

Plot:

Chris is a once promising high school athlete whose life is turned upside down following a tragic accident. As he tries to maintain a normal life, he takes a job as a janitor at a bank, where he ultimately finds himself caught up in a planned heist.

Plot Keywords:

Bank | Athlete | Planning | Janitor | Notebook

Awards:

1 win & 8 nominations

Cast

Joseph Gordon-Levitt	...	Chris Pratt
Jeff Daniels	...	Lewis
Matthew Goode	...	Gary Spargo
Isla Fisher	...	Luvlee
Carla Gugino	...	Janet
Bruce McGill	...	Robert Pratt
Alberta Watson	...	Barbara Pratt
Alex Borstein	...	Mrs. Lange
Sergio Di Zio	...	Deputy Ted
David Huband	...	Mr. Tuttle
Laura Vandervoort	...	Kelly
Greg Dunham	...	Bone
Morgan Kelly	...	Marty
Aaron Berg	...	Cork
Tinsel Korey	...	Maura

MPAA:

Rated R for language, some violence and sexual content.

Runtime:

99 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

USA:R | Germany:12 | Sweden:11 | Portugal:M/12 | South Korea:15 | Singapore:NC-16 | UK:15 | Malaysia:U | Argentina:13 | Philippines:PG-13 | Finland:K-13 (video rating) (2007) | Australia:M

Filming Locations:

Hartney, Manitoba, Canada

Company:

Miramax Films

Trivia:

The film's translation in Russia is "Fraud"

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Chris Pratt calls Gary to arrange where to return the money, he tells him to meet him at 6 AM, meaning that it would be earlier than 6 AM when the call was placed. However, it's already light out, even though the sun does not rise in Kansas City until after 7:35 AM at the time of year the movie takes place (Christmas).

Quotes:

[first lines]
Chris Pratt: It only happens once a year, and then they die. It's like a mating ritual or something.
Kelly: Isn't that romantic?

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Siskel & Ebert & the Movies: The Best of 2007" (2007)

Soundtrack:

Nobody But You

An absorbing study of depression and rehabilitation

So you want a good heist film? See Dog Day Afternoon, as tense a study in botched robbery and kidnapping to come out of the '70's as any. Don't think the sweet Lookout will carry the same tension because it so heavily relies on the character exposition of its protagonist, Chris (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), that the heist is just an artful ending to an absorbing study of depression and rehabilitation.

Chris, a rock-star hockey player in high school, terminates that celebrity with a reckless accident that leaves him impaired emotionally and physically. So he's easy prey for a gang that entices him to help them rob a rural Kansas bank, where he is a janitor. Up to the point of the gang contacting him, Chris tries heroically to perform actions in a logical sequence. But even his family, especially his father, is impatient with his arrested development, although they are generous in financially supporting him as he goes on the mend.

Writer/director Scott Frank rarely lets Chris out of the frame, to good effect, because the actor and his lamentable past draw us into his narrow world in sympathy but not pity. Chris is determined to arrange his life in a sequence, with the help of his notebook and roomie, a blind and perceptive, bearded, guitar-playing Jeff Daniels, whose lines provide humor and balancing perspective as Chris slips into the heist. Both actors exude realistic, humorous, world weary personas that perfectly reveal the ambivalence Chris brings to this life-defining crime.

The Lookout is a small film, released at dumping time right after the Oscars, but an invigorating study of humans under stress. It begs all of us to "lookout" where we are going, either on a lonely road with our lights turned off or in a plan to steal from farmers who have made life possible.