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Lookout, The (2007)
IMDB rating: 7.40
Plot: An admired high school hockey player (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) with a bright future foolishly takes a drive in the night with his girl friend and two other friends with his headlights off with devastating results. The former athlete is left with a brain injury that prevents him from remembering many things for extended periods of time. To compensate, he keeps notes in a small notebook to aid him in remembering what he is to do. He also lives with a blind friend (Jeff Daniels) who aids him. Obviously, with the mental incapacitation, he is unable to have meaningful work. Thus he works as a night cleaning man in a bank. It is there he comes under the scrutiny of a gang planning to rob the bank. The leader (Matthew Goode) befriends him and gets him involved with a young woman (Isla Fisher) who further reels him in. After they get close and after reeling him in with his own failures, the bank plan unfolds. Confused but wanting to escape his current existence, he initially goes along with the scheme. After realizing he is being used, he attempts to stop the robbery, which of course immediately goes awry. Bruce McGill and Alberta Watson also co-star as the young man’s parents, who still search for the person that was there before the tragic crash.
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Directors: Frank Scott
Actors: Gordon-Levitt Joseph,Daniels Jeff,Goode Matthew,McGill Bruce,Di Zio Sergio,Huband David,Dunham Greg,Kelly Morgan,Berg Aaron,Crime,Drama,Thriller,
Good idea for a story, yes or no. Contains gay material. Very long.?
It’s at an all-boys school.
It starts with this guy named Xavier, who is obsessed with a boy named Danton. He stalks him, takes his picture without him knowing, leaves a river of anonymous notes in his locker, and watches him through the window at home. Danton is thoroughly creeped out, but does not say anything until he is home alone one day and he notices things that point to someone having been in the house (all his drawers had been looked through but nothing taken, the window open, etc.)
He tells his brother who is the same age as him, and his brother tells their best friend, and the two of them decide they’ll find out who this guy is and stop him. They do find Xavier, beat him to a nub, and threaten his life.
The next day, the entire school knows about what happened. Immediately, some students are concerned for "poor Xavier" who was innocent and victimized, and some students are taken by Luke (Danton’s brother) and William’s ( their friend) action.
When Xavier does not stop talking about his obsession with Danton, some of the other boys kind of join him. This is where it loses some of it’s sexuality, because it becomes more of a principal than a human fixation. Danton represents innocence, sweetness, almost perfection, and the boys, after listening to Xavier, see that and so many other things that they become obsessed with as well for so many reasons, only some of them sexual.
When the obsession becomes stronger and Danton begins finding more notes in his locker, begins noticing people staring at him, he gets scared and more people join Luke and William in trying to stop the "freaks".
It slowly escalates, and finally, there’s an attempt by a few of the obsessives to kidnap Danton. This causes an uproar. The students are suddenly frantic. Those obsessed with Danton (or the idea of having/obtaining Danton) have to show up to his house, tap on the bathroom window while he’s taking showers, etc. Those who are hell-bent on protecting Danton follow him around, buy his lunch, and are all around on the lookout.
It gets extremely violent as they set out to destroy each other, to stop the other "side". Luke gets shot, not killed, just shot in the arm. There are stabbings. Rapes. Three selective deaths throughout the story. All associated with gang violence by the police.
There’s a theme of the adults in the story being very uninvolved.
There is a scene where Xavier is talking about how he never wanted it to be like this, how everybody is greedy and evil and all he ever did was love Danton.
Then there are Luke and William, who were concerned for Danton, and are baffled by those who are also "concerned" because the others seem more interested in hurting "freaks" like the ones obsessed with Danton.
It strays from actual Danton, but never /really/ does because everything is kind of motivated by him.
After Luke got shot, it all started to unravel. More than half the student body was directly involved in this, and the rest knew exactly what was going on. Kids were genuinely afraid to come to school because of all the violence and terror. Of the three deaths, one was of an obsessive, one was of a protector, and one was of this innocent guy who went to school and said the wrong thing.
It ends with the very disturbed Xavier bringing a gun, killing Danton, Luke, wounding William, killing one of the higher-ups of the obsessives, and then killing himself to "end the madness".
At the VERY end, the adults in the story, who had been extremely absent, are seemingly clueless to everything (including the deaths) and are asking the kids to sit down and do some schoolwork. It’s the first time that there’s a scene in the classroom.
I really like the idea. Please please write it and maybe I could read some of it? Please?
Liz | Feb 08, 2010
Sorry… i am not that patient… try to cut short ur posts from here on… it would be easier for u and for us…
Yesh16 | Feb 08, 2010
I think it could be very interesting, if you wrote it well enough to make it seem plausible. You would also have to do lots of planning with regard to structure, imagery, themes, characters and so on.
I would read it!
Good luck!
Lyster | Feb 08, 2010
not bad.
has a bit of a manga theme to it though,
particularly with it’s revolving mostly around school/home
and having a small group of friends.
the plot seems a little weak here and there, but other than that it looks like a decent story.
for some reason some story’s become so much better when visually depicted.
and so personally i think it would make a better graphic novel than a plain novel.
so maybe you might have some one help you visualize the charters in the story.
Kicked by a muse. | Feb 08, 2010
Dean Stafford