DAC Episode 283: The Random Canon #12 - The Lookout (2007)

Here’s a question: What if Memento, that cognitively scrambled threnody of guilt and responsibility and shirtless Guy Pearce, had been a character study of alienation and loneliness (also guilt and responsibility) without the narrative gimmicks? But with Joseph Gordon-Levitt? If you haven’t given up on these sentences yet, I’ll tell you: you’d get Scott Frank’s The Lookout (2007), an underrated film about a young man (Gordon-Levitt) with brain damage who falls under the influence of local criminal Gary Spargo (a hella sleazy Matthew Goode). On the other side of the moral equation is Lewis (Jeff Daniels), his roommate and friend (although shepherd might be a better word for their relationship.

For those familiar with Scott Frank’s screenplays (Out of Sight, Minority Report, The Wolverine, Logan) the spiritual terrain of The Lookout is quickly recognizable: an alienated male protagonist struggling to stay on the right path but always veering off into tangled brush. The Lookout is Frank’s feature directorial debut, and it is clear that he’s wresting with a deceptively difficult screenplay, sometimes stumbling into the woods himself. It may not quite stand up as an overlooked classic, but it’s a melancholy and tight take on the heist genre.

Listen below as Adam and Aidan discuss what works and what doesn’t in The Lookout, or find us on your podauger of choice.