The Lookout (2007)
DIRECTOR: Scott Frank
CAST:
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jeff Daniels, Matthew Goode, Isla Fisher, Bruce McGill, Greg Dunham, Carla Gugino
REVIEW:
The Lookout is a decent little thriller that sets out with unambitious goals and mostly fulfills them. As the directorial debut of accomplished screenwriter Scott Frank (Dead Again, Get Shorty, Out of Sight, Minority Report), it’s a modest effort that has an interesting premise, does a few things effectively, most things adequately, but too many things weakly to earn it more than a lukewarm recommendation. The best things about it aren’t directly related to the thriller angle, principally the effective development of an individual struggling with brain damage.
Continue readingZodiac (2007)
DIRECTOR: David Fincher
CAST: Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Edwards, Chloe Sevigny, Brian Cox, Elias Koteas, Dermot Mulroney, Philip Baker Hall, John Carroll Lynch
REVIEW:
While it tells the true unsolved story of one of America’s most notorious serial killers–at least that which is publicly known–Zodiac is not a thriller, at least not in a conventional sense. Rather, it’s a police procedural and docudrama. Based on a true crime book by Robert Graysmith, it puts the focus not on Zodiac himself, who remains a shadowy, elusive, nameless and faceless figure (although the movie’s viewpoint, like Graysmith’s, is blatantly slanted toward one suspect), but on the men (including Graysmith himself) who were involved in the long-running, ultimately fruitless manhunt. To this end, Zodiac is a bit like a souped-up, two-and-a-half hour episode of Law & Order, and will appeal to some of the same audience fascinated by the details of police procedure and investigating. It depicts the above with slick polish and is often intriguing, but an uneven pace and the inevitable open ending will frustrate some viewers not strongly interested in the subject matter. Continue reading