Film Review: Fine Performances All There is to See in ' The Lookout '

Review by Noah Mallin

Screenwriter Scott Frank's debut in the director's chair The Lookout suffers, oddly enough, from a screenplay (by Frank) that isn't as clever as it thinks it is and leisurely editing by Jill Savitt. On the plus side of the ledger are some excellent performances all around, most notably by Joseph Gordon-Levitt who seems just a few roles away from a breakthrough.

Gordon-Levitt plays a self-satisfied high school jock who plows his convertible into a combine through sheer lunkheaded recklessness killing two friends and badly wounding his pretty girlfriend. The accident leaves him with one of those brain injuries beloved by noir screenwriters and rare anywhere else. He has difficulty remembering things and has particular trouble with causality. Jeff Daniels plays the blind man who lives with him in a sort of disabled persons half-way home. Daniels is a welcome presence, finding just the right amount of wryness and concern. Carla Gugino shows up all to briefly as a counselor.

As the film unspools Gordon-Levitt becomes entangled in a far-fetched bank-robbery scheme by creepy Matthew Goode and naively sexy Isla Fisher. It's one of the more interesting underdeveloped points that through the eyes of these characters who remember him from high school, Gordon-Levitt seems like something of a conceited asshole before the unintentional lobotomy.

Unfortunately this turns out to be no Memento despite Gordon-Levitt's habit of labelling things and making notes to himself. Rather it takes on the quality of an afterschool special designed to encourage people who've suffered brain trauma to engage themselves in seedy neo-noir situations as a means of therapy.

The aforementioned editing makes things worse by squelching whatever surprise and tension there is -- the film itself seems to be in a sort of stupor. Here's hoping that Gordon-Levitt, like his character, finds a better class of people to run with next time.

Film Review: Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse Finds The Sweet Spot

Review by Noah Mallin

The title sounds like something from the deep recesses of 70s porn. The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse is quite another thing entirely. Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart, and Claire Trevor head the cast of this late 30s dramatic gangster comedy. The three would later end up in the superior Key Largo together directed by Clitterhouse co-writer John Huston.

Unlike Key Largo though this is one of the few gangster pics in which Robinson didn't play a ruthless mug -- that's down to Bogie in a smoldering performance. Instead Robinson is an intellectual doctor with an interest in the physiological effects of criminality. So interested is he that he begins to commit robberies amongst his wealthy friends to study the effect.

While attempting to hock his hot stuff he runs into Claire Trevor, an awfully nice gang queenpin, and gang leader Bogart. Clitterhouse's quick thinking and sharp organizational skills propel him to gang leadership and a place in Trevor's heart, both of which rub Bogie the wrong way.

This is an unusual performance from Robinson, playing an off-kilter upper class man of science. He speaks mellifluously and approaches every situation with calm and reason. Trevor is very good, though after her early scenes she becomes less convincing as a crime overlord. Bogart had played hoods before and was a Warner Brothers go-to guy for the type at this point in his career but the menace and resentment he brings to his role here are first rate.

Some reviewers have knocked Clitterhouse for its mix of comedy and drama and its odd conclusion, which must have been perplexing during the Code-era. I found it to be a great deal of fun, not least of which for the performances. The ambiguity in Dr. Clitterhouse's character is quite modern, fascinated by doing wrong and drawn to it -- for purely academic purposes.

Ultimately there are dark byways of the soul that director Anatole Litvak leaves unexplored, but the light froth that remains is enjoyable in and of itself.