The Lookout

The Lookout (2007), screenwriter Scott Frank's debut behind the camera, is a crime thriller you can watch online on iFILM. Its hero was once a promising hockey player; now he writes everything in a notebook just to remember how to get through a day.

A car crash left Chris Pratt (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) with short-term memory damage. He scrambles the order of simple tasks, loses the thread, and leans on cues from his blind, wisecracking roommate Lewis (Jeff Daniels). At night Chris mops floors in a small-town bank, and that is exactly what the smooth-talking Gary Spargo (Matthew Goode) is counting on as he befriends him to get at the keys and the alarm code. Isla Fisher plays a woman whose place in the plan is no accident.

Frank, who wrote Get Shorty and Out of Sight, builds the tension slowly, through the hero's vulnerability rather than gunfire. Gordon-Levitt carries the whole film as a man who has to outwit armed robbers while distrusting his own mind. A solid pick for anyone who likes quiet, intelligent noir thrillers. Stream The Lookout (2007) online on iFILM.