The Lookout - B+

In Theatres. R rated, 102 minutes.

First-time director Scott Frank made his name penning screenplays based on novels by noted writers Philip K. Dick (Minority Report) and Elmore Leonard (Out of Sight, Get Shorty). Come to find out, he’s got a few stories worth telling of his own. The Lookout tells the story of the athlete that probably should have died young. The Set-up: Chris Pratt (an understated Joseph Gordon-Levitt of Third Rock fame) was the handsome/rich kid/star athlete everybody wanted to be or be with in high school (“I was three years older than you and I wanted to be you”). Driving down an old Kansas highway with his best friend, his girlfriend, and a fourth, he flips the headlights off and never sees the combine in the middle of the road. The accident leaves his girlfriend and best friend dead, the fourth with a prosthetic, and Chris with substantial brain damage that limits his ability to sequence cause and effect and self-sensor his speech.

The Plot: Coupled by “the agency” with blind roommate Lewis (an excellent Jeff Daniels), Pratt attends classes by day and cleans a small town bank by night. Lonely and frustrated by his inability to pick-up a girl (a deft commentary on the need for a guy to self-sensor his intentions in order to get in a relationship), Chris is vulnerable to a high school acquaintance (Gary Spargo) and his ex-stripper accomplice “Luvlee Limons” (a stock character played with depth and feel by Wedding Crashers stand out and Borat fiancee Isla Fisher). Of course his new friends just want access to the vault Pratt sweeps around every night, snagging Chris with the hope of love and the dream of returning to his high school glory days. No fun spoiling the ride, but the story keeps twisting in unexpected directions, turning every time I thought I'd figured the ending.

The supporting cast is uniformly spot-on. Of special note is Bruce McGill (of MacGyver fame), Carla Gugino (Night at the Museum, Sin City), and Sergio Di Zio as a small town cop with hidden fire in his belly. The cinematography captures both the wide-open starkness and loneliness of Kansas farm roads and the warmth of the people that inhabit them. While the wrap-up’s a little clean, a very good film. B+.

Favorite scene: The confrontation between Jeff Daniels and Isla Fisher when he asks, “Something tells me you don’t see yourself invited to the Pratt family Thanksgiving next year. So let me do you a favor and ask you a question, ‘What are you doing here?’”