Leonard Maltin's 151 Best Movies You've Never Seen - Maltin, Leonard [54]
The Lookout is a sharply observed character study cloaked in the guise of a heist movie. It may well be the best movie I saw in 2007, but because it didn’t have lofty ambitions, or make any kind of splash, it wasn’t mentioned in most year-end surveys and wasn’t an Oscar contender. It did win its creator an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature, which must have been a source of great satisfaction for writer-director Scott Frank.
Frank is hardly a newcomer to the movie scene. His screenplays include Little Man Tate, Minority Report, and two highly regarded Elmore Leonard adaptations, Out of Sight and Get Shorty. The Lookout is an original work that was intended to be one more writing credit on his résumé. Several major directors were attached to it at various times, and Frank made a number of changes as he worked with such filmmakers as Sam Mendes and David Fincher, in some cases for a year or more. For various reasons, these directors abandoned The Lookout for other projects, as did actors Tom Hanks, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Brad Pitt, all of whom were mentioned as expressing interest at various times.
Along the way DreamWorks, which was cofinancing the picture, told Frank that if he ever wanted to direct they’d support him. He finally decided that if there were ever a project he knew by heart, and felt confident enough to direct, this was it. DreamWorks then pulled out. Fortunately, Spyglass Films was still enthusiastic, and told the fledgling filmmaker that if he could make the picture for $12 million (a very low figure by mainstream Hollywood standards), he could cast it himself and make it without interference. And that’s exactly what he did.
By eschewing major movie stars, Frank did himself a favor and a disservice at the same time. When I tried touting the movie to friends, they would ask, “Who’s in it?” When I replied, “Joseph Gordon-Levitt,” their eyes turned glassy. “You know,” I said, “the kid from Third Rock from the Sun? He’s grown up now, and he’s a really good actor.” They’d nod politely. There was equal lack of recognition for sexy leading lady Isla Fisher, in spite of her scene-stealing performance in Wedding Crashers. Mentioning Jeff Daniels helped a little, but I recognized a lost cause when I saw it. Perhaps if the film had had A-list stars above the title it would have attracted an audience.
On the other hand, the casting of The Lookout is absolutely perfect, from top to bottom. Gordon-Levitt is one of the most talented actors of his generation, and the fact that he’s more interested in challenging roles than in seizing the brass ring of stardom makes me admire him all the more. He’s done fine work in such indie films as Mysterious Skin, Brick, Shadowboxer, and Stop-Loss, although some people still know him best as the second lead in 10 Things I Hate About You with Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles.
Here, he plays a onetime high school jock, the big man on campus in his Midwestern town, whose life changed in the blink of an eye as the result of a terrible auto accident that took another student’s life. With some residual brain damage, he lives the life of a drone, holding down a night job as a janitor at the local bank and rooming with an acerbic fellow (Jeff Daniels) who happens to be blind.
Into his dead-end life comes a live wire (Matthew Goode) who remembers him from school and who, with the help of a sexy accomplice (Isla Fisher), lures him into a daring scheme to rob the bank where he works.
The plotting is sure-handed and unpredictable, but what I like most about The Lookout is the way it presents its dramatis personae. Each character is colorful, interesting, and completely fleshed out no matter how briefly he or she appears on screen. A bank guard who has a small but recurring role turns up one night with his pregnant wife in the car at curbside, and even though we see her for only a moment, we know everything we need to know about her and her relationship with her eager