A high school student driving at night (Joseph Gordon Levitt) gets into a serious accident that kills two of his friends, maims his girlfriend, and leaves him with a serious traumatic brain injury.  A few years later, we find that he has to take classes to try and remember things like how to properly shower and eat breakfast.  He lives with a blind roommate (Jeff Daniels) and is distant from his wealthy, car dealership-owning family.  Targeted by a gang of bank robbers via seduction by a stripper (Isla Fisher), he eventually agrees to let them take advantage of his job at a bank in order to make a major score.  Once he changes his mind, though, he cannot back out and has to think quickly to save both himself and his roommate.

The best movie I know of about traumatic brain injury and second only to Memento in dealing with amnestic disorders, The Lookout is still only an average film.  Many of the performances are good, including Levitt, and Matthew Goode as the leader of the bank robbers.  The realistic portrayal of Levitt’s memory and decision making problems provides a good primer about coping with a brain injury.  However, other performances, especially Daniels’ turn as the blind roommate, are disappointing and director Scott Frank, known for his scripts for Out of Sight and Get Shorty, demonstrates again that he struggles to create female characters.  This is mainly recommended for fans of Levitt’s considerable talents and students of memory problems.  ✰ ✰ ½.

MJM  04-17-2012