On the surface, The Lookout bears all the elements of a full-on-entertaining action thriller. Bank robberies. Redemption. Betrayal. Tie in some memory loss and navel-gazing and director Scott Frank seems to think you get a teenage Memento. Unfortunately, if it is one at all, it's at best imitative and at worst not able to live up to the standards of either an action thriller or a psychological drama.
Child-actor-turned-indie-darling Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Chris Pratt, high school hockey hero who loses large chunks of his memory after a terrible car accident that leaves his girlfriend Kelly in a similar state and two of their friends dead. (This too conveniently sets up a scene where the estranged pair wistfully pass each other on opposite sides of a frozen lake outside the psychiatric center both are sent to in order to regain their memories.)
At the same time, Chris works as a janitor at a nearby bank; his fragile mental state leads to a gang befriending him and enlisting his help in robbing the bank.
Between connecting the dots of a boy's fragmented past, the film does make thoughtful links between how the physically impaired aren't really disconnected from the outside world if they remain strongly engaged in reality through their other senses. Chris' blind guardian Lewis (Jeff Daniels) is a wonderfully offbeat 'aged hippie' who doesn't let his loss of sight stand in the way of ribbing his younger friend about women, dreaming about setting up his own diner and being loudly politically incorrect. He's a character who somehow makes Chris' self-involved rage at being cut off from his smooth upper-class past seem whiny and watery.
Therein lies the problem -- despite Frank's attempts to give characters depth, Lewis remains one of the few who are likeable. Among other things, post-accident Chris is prone to irrational, violent anger and epileptic fits. Oddly enough, pre-accident Chris seems to have been equally uninhibited and reckless. When his new lover Luvlee (no pun intended) admiringly recalls his abuse of a weaker hockey player after the last defining match of the season, I shivered. Luvlee is, by the way, your stereotypical impressionable, doe-eyed airhead. But she's the only one of the bank robbery gang who genuinely cares about Chris, though her key intonation -- "I can't believe I fucked Chris Pratt!" -- just about sums up the depth of her affections. We're supposed to feel for her. She's even placed in an angelic ring of bright sunlight when gazing out the window at Chris' car after a night together.The moment is undermined when you see gang-leader Gary standing with his arms around her to indicate that she, being the dumb female protagonist, is merely a possession and tool in the operation.
In addition to these unlikable characters, the build-up of action during the bank heist sequence is disappointingly watered down. In line with frequent flashbacks to the accident throughout the movie, Chris quite thrillingly pulls a fast one on the robbers who take Lewis hostage after realizing Chris has escaped with the money. After this scene, however, he goes on to fall asleep while waiting in his car for the gang to show up and dreams of an emotional reconciliation with Kelly. Elsewhere, an asthmatic Gary is slowly bleeding to death from a gunshot wound the whole time the gang members pursue Chris, which leaves no room whatsoever for a fierce confrontation between the two at the end.
Bone -- Gary's silent, brutal right-hand-man -- only further reveals the film's problem of focusing a wee bit much on making the main characters sympathetic.He's the only figure capable of creating any form of threat and tension in the shoot-out scenes, whereas it's the emotions of the main characters during the action scenes that are highlighted rather than their violent exploits. A meshing of psychological drama and action is done at the expense of plot development.
The Lookout touches some chords as it gets to the emotional core of its dramatically down-and-out characters. But as an action flick goes, it's pretty much full of hot air.
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