Robber Barren

Scott Frank's The Lookout sticks to Plan A.

by Cindy Fuchs

WASTED AND READY: Chris (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) gets his scheme on with Gary (Matthew Goode). (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

A popular high school athlete is celebrating prom night with his perfect blond girlfriend. They're riding in a convertible, a couple of friends in the backseat, whooping and carousing. Suddenly, his reckless, self-absorbed driving leads to tragedy. So far, so regular.

Cut to "four years later," when The Lookout takes a turn you might not expect, before it doesn't. The driver, former hockey star Chris (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), is now in perpetual rehab. Estranged from his unforgiving and not incidentally wealthy father (Bruce McGill) and living with fellow "crip" Lewis (Jeff Daniels), blinded years ago in an accident, Chris is angry and resentful that he's "all fucked up." He has to write down basic details of his day just to get through it (notes to identify his dinner plate and the can opener). Lewis helps him think through the sense of "sequence" he's lost: "Don't think of it as a list," he says. "Think of it as a story." Specifically, one where he starts at the end and works backward.

First-time director Scott Frank, who scripted Out of Sight, breaks down his tale in a similar way. As Chris' start was an ending of sorts, what happens next — the rest of the movie — takes him back, more and more able to understand who he used to be, and how he came to be here now.

The process involves some knotty plotting. He meets a pretty girl (Isla Fisher) and a crew of gonnabe bank robbers, headed by young thug Gary (Matthew Goode), who tap Chris because he mops floors at what looks to be the smallest bank in Kansas (shot in Manitoba). They give him what he thinks he's lost since the accident — masculine community and sex with a girl who calls herself Luvlee — promising him a break from his unchanging routine as well. Apparently lacking the capacity for self-reflection on top of everything else, Chris signs on.

As you're steps ahead of Chris by definition, the movie approximates his storytelling method, revealing its plot hand pretty much right away. Gary and Luvlee are untrustworthy schemers, affiliated with a very grim-looking shooter named Bone (Greg Dunham, channeling Lance Henriksen), and true-blue Lewis is not only nosy and protective, but also vulnerable. None of this would be surprising in the standard innocent-caught-in-a-heist movie, and it's not here.

This all means Gordon-Levitt has a lot of work to do, convincing you that Chris is processing in an extraordinarily altered way. For the most part, he's quite up to it. According to the awkwardness of his gait and the puzzlement on his face, Chris' former life seems long-lost, his current life nearly unfathomable (which makes him more like you than he thinks). And until the story gives way completely, into bloody retribution set against a snowy vista (something like Fargo meets Reservoir Dogs meets Brick), he makes his erratic efforts to read himself appear engaged and engaging.

(c_fuchs@citypaper.net)

The Lookout | Directed by Scott Frank | A Miramax release