GRADE: B+

Screenwriter Scott Frank, who penned scripts for such films as Get Shorty, Minority Report, Final Analysis and Out of Sight, makes the most of his first turn as writer-director with a well done, surprisingly suspenseful May-December character study cum crime caper that benefits from the talents of an excellent cast.

That cast features rising star Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Chris Pratt, a former rich-kid, glamour-boy start athlete who seemed to have it all before a tragic automobile accident left him something of a shell of his former self.

While Pratt’s body has healed, the effects of the severe brain injury he received remain. Those effects have mostly to do with memory loss and the inability to sequence, leaving him sometimes unable to perform simple tasks like making coffee or brushing his teeth

Pratt also suffers from guilt—he was the driver in the accident, which left two of his friends dead. In the aftermath, he’s tried to make a life for himself, such that it is, and now works nights as a janitor at a small town bank. It’s not that the accident left him less intelligent, per sé, but his difficulty with organizing and remembering things has put more complex employment and a typical social life out of reach.

His roommate, Lewis, a 50ish ex-meth lab chemist who reformed after going blind from the fumes the drug-making compounds emitted, comes courtesy of another fine Jeff Daniels’ performance. Lewis is the best thing Pratt has going for himself, a reliable older brother figure who genuinely likes the kid and wants to open a restaurant with him.

These factors are set-up early in The Lookout and have a flavor and texture all their own, providing an engrossing context for what follows. That includes the appearance of an old high school acquaintance of Pratt’s, Gary Spargo (Matthew Goode), who’s clearly fallen in with a rough and tumble crowd.

With his girlfriend’s help, Spargo befriends the vulnerable Pratt, plying him with stories that feed off the young man’s guilt and anger, and off his desire to recapture his former life. The only way to do that, Spargo convinces him, is too have a lot of money. Desperate to be the man he once was, Pratt seems an easy target for the shifty Spargo’s manipulations, at the heart of which lies a diabolical plan to rob the bank where Pratt works.

The shrewd set-up arrives at a place where it looks like The Lookout will settle for being a by-the-numbers-thriller going forward, but Frank’s original story is a crafty affair with a couple of credible twists that send it beyond the confines of the heist-gone-bad formula.

There’s a misstep or two along the way—Frank’s screenplay falls victim to convention on occasion and overlooks the impact of an important plot development in the film’s epilogue. But the top-flight performances, nifty cinematography and restrained score from the usually demonstrative James Newton Howard make The Lookout a sleeper well worth looking up.

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