“The Lookout” review
Scott Frank‘s The Lookout (Miramax, 3.30) has some good things going for it. Jeff Daniels‘ performance, for one. The dialogue, the craft and the care that went into it, and the snow and the slush covering the dreary Midwestern locales. But it’s largely about a young brain-damaged guy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) dealing with hunger and temptation, and I think life is brutal and exhausting enough without having a brain injury to contend with, and I just decided early on I didn’t want to go there. Sorry, but I spook easily.
Jeff Daniels, Joseph Gordon-Levitt
A lot of care and craft and particularity went into The Lookout. It’s nicely sculpted (for what it is), feels well-drawn, has several solid performances (Bruce McGill‘s excellent paterfamillias is another standout) and so on. It was obviously made by a high-end pro who knows how to write snappy, down-to-it dialogue, but the only actor I wanted to hang with was Daniels. He plays a very smart low-rent character with spot-on seasoning and a perfect sense of emphasis. The kind of dumb-ass who knows more than he lets on.
The Lookout is primarily about some low-rent losers embarked on a nefarious scheme to score big dough — a bank job that you know is going to fail because they’re not smart or lucky enough. It’s obviously Fargo-esque in its frequent use of bleak, snowy backdrops as well as the lower-middle-class, criminal-class, upper-class mixture.
Scott wrote the Lookout script well over ten years ago. Sam Mendes was going to direct it (signed on before American Beauty was released), then David Fincher. Michael Mann flirted with it briefly before Frank decided he didn’t want to rewrite it again for another director.
“It was always a small mood piece in my mind, based on someone I knew,” Frank said a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t know how to write about him until I read this piece about these shitty little banks in these tiny towns that sometimes have millions of dollars in the vault for a couple of weeks twice a year, during harvesting and pre-planting seasons.
“I went to these towns in Kansas and you see how empty they are at night. How easy it would be to simply blow up the bank and walk in and walk out with the money! Suddenly, I had this notion of locating this character I had been thinking about in the middle of a thriller and it just went from there.”
I was bothered, frankly, by the bank set-up — all that glass, all those lights, all that exposure. Anyone could have seen those guys doing what they were doing. When a bank job is happening I want the thieves to do the job right and get away, and my thought from the beginning was that the whole place is way too visible and overlit.
Frank had to know that people would compare it to Fargo. If I’d been in Frank’s shoes, knowing full well that I was playing on the same football field as Fargo, I would have gone all the way and written it for dark sardonic laughs all around, like the Coens did. Why not? People are going to Fargo you anyway. When I mentioned this to Frank, he said that a Fargo-like tone “just wasn’t in my head. I wanted something emotional. Maybe I didn’t succeed, but I really wanted a thriller that had some modicum of emotion to it.”
I was impressed by Matthew Goode‘s attempt to get away from the cute and dapper English gentleman stuff that he did in Match Point by playing a low-rent psychopathic thug. But deep down I’m sensing that he really is that guy in Match Point (or a close relation) and that he may as well accept it.
good stuff, your reviews are great…
maybe you can let us know what other TV you admire? seen The Shield?
I’ve slowly but surely gotten really excited for this movie. The fact that people like Mendes, Fincher, Mann, Tom Cruise, Leo Dicaprio and Brad Pitt have circled it makes me think it must be a fairly kick-ass script. I love ‘Minority Report’ and ‘Out of Sight.’ Richard Roeper isn’t exactly the most admired critic in America, but he and whoever the guest critic was that week did go on and on about what a masterpiece it was. And this kid, Gordon-Leavitt, seems like he’s putting together a pretty impressive body of work. I’m anticipating this movie quite a bit, actually.
I saw the film at SXSW. I dug it. I disagree about the Fargo comparisons. I am foaming at the mouth Fargo fan and yet I never once thought about that film until you mentioned it. And had he gone for that sardonic humor like you suggested it would have lost what I enjoyed about it. Which was largely the somber, razor’s edge line the tone hovered over through the entirety. It was polished and well made, yet it wasn’t trying to to blow anyone’s mind. And it didn’t want to go for the easy chuckle. I agree. McGill and Daniels were fantastic.
YOU spook easy? You didn’t want to go there?
Aren’t you the guy who’s always excoriating the rubes who wanna take the easy way out, the middle-class-sensibility types who can’t stand to be shaken up emotionally and just wanna watch Eddie Murphy and Nora Ephron movies?
You really seem to have something against dreary, snowy climates in movies. Is it because you’re from Wisconsin or Upstate New York or wherever? Could it be you have some kind of seasonal-affective-disorder, and get existentially bummed when you think of those short days, shuttered shops, empty streets and slushy sidewalks?
That I can at least understand. But you should ‘fess up to being a wuss in this regard.
“life is brutal and exhausting enough without having a brain injury to contend with”
Your life consists, as far as I know, of watching movies for free, going to parties for free, schmoozing with celebrities, and blogging for a couple of hours a day.
Maybe there is a brain injury in there somewhere.
According to Scott Frank, you’ve got it backwards. Matthew Goode is evidently MUCH closer to the role he plays here than he is to the character in MATCH POINT.
i think levitt is also in Killshot thats due out soon, he’s a good actor, he was in shadowboxer last year, gave a good performance…
Levitt is quietly becoming one of the key actors of his generation with a whole series of excellent performances in small, overlooked films: Manic, Mysterious Skin, Brick, The Lookout, etc. And I have to ask the same question as jeffmcm. Relatively speaking, where’s the endless misery in your life, Jeff? Your attitude reminds me of Jake Gyllenhaal complaining about having to do too many takes, which you recently slammed right here on this site. It’s not like you work in a coal mine or something.
The whole heist angle was the worst thing about this movie, which could’ve had interesting things to say about male friendship. Levitt impresses me more and more; “Mysterious Skin” was easily one of the best films of that year, and his work was terrific.
I honestly cannot wait for this movie to come out. It has the look of a low budget jewel with a stepping plot and well developed characters. I had only heard a few things about it before checking out the official review from Roeper. Ironically he felt the same way as I do, and mentioned that it was “small film masterpiece.” If you are still debating whether or not to see this check out Roeper’s review for yourselves at http://www.atthemoviestv.com This site is great for current movie reviews for old and new movies with full length high-production video reviews. I just wanted to give you guys the inside scoop because I work with Ebert and Roeper.
If JW is so incredibly fragile that he can’t handle a fictional genre picture about a mentally disabled fella, he has to STFU from now on with the disparaging comments against those timid souls who think “too soon” re: United 93.
What a freakin’ hypocrite.
I can’t wait for the film, though, and love just about everything Frank and Levitt have been involved with lately.
The trailer for “The Lookout” left me feeling extremely blah about the movie; but then I saw that Roeper and Whoeverthehell review, and they really sold it pretty damn well.
I second to infinity what JD’s saying about Joseph Gordon Levitt. He’s just…I can’t believe the kid in “3rd Rock From the Sun” came up with what he did in “Mysterious Skin”. He should’ve been nominated for an Oscar that year just as much as Ryan Gosling was for “Half Nelson” this year. Thank God for “Brick” getting him halfway to the profile he ought to be having right now.
Some of these guys have a point Jeff. You go on and one about people being too cowardly to face a film about a real, recent trauma and you can’t face a noir with a hero who’s sufferinf from brain damage? This strikes me as a fairly idiotic cop out. THE LOOKOUT must be pretty good but for some reason not on your tao of cool or whatever dictates your tastes.
Of course I call something idiotic and then spell two words wrong. Way to fall off my high horse.
Joseph Gordon Levitt: at least there’s one young actor with a shred of dignity to their name!