The Frame

A gem of a little movie that slipped under the radar…it might still be playing near you, and I suggest you give it a look-see if it is. The lead Joseph Gordon-Levitt was one of may great things about last year’s Brick, and he brings a similar quiet intensity to The Lookout. He plays a young man injured in a terrible car accident, and between the brain-damage from the accident and his guilt over causing the accident, which killed three of his friends, he’s kinda messed up. His attempts to live a normal life are interrupted when a man approaches him, claims to have known him in high school (this may be true, it’s hard to tell) and offers him the chance of a lifetime–get rich by acting as a lookout on a bank robbery. It’s much more focused on Gordon-Levitt’s character and his struggles to figure out who he is and where he fits in the world now than on the robbery itself, but the thriller aspects are definitely there. It’s really well-balanced and while it isn’t the heady experience that something like Brick or Memento is, it’s very good at being what it is, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Well Above Average