The I Inside
July 9th, 2007
The only excuse I have for sitting through this straight-to-DVD clunker is the presence of Sarah Polley, who Marcy will see in absolutely anything. Ryan Phillippe, Piper Perabo and Stephen Rea are in it too, so how bad could it be?
Bad enough for the credits to misspell the star’s name: after an accident that left him dead for two minutes, Simon Cable (Ryan Phillipe [sic]) wakes up in a hospital with a case of that lazy old mindfuck standby, amnesia. He finds out that he’s got a wife who doesn’t love him (Perabo) and a lover who seems to (Polley) — but then things change again, because like Vonnegut’s Billy Pilgrim, he’s become unstuck in time, too.
The script, based on a play by Michael Cooney, dispenses the pieces of the puzzle at random, and it takes all of five minutes to suspect that it’s going to end like An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. Still, we were willing to go along with it, but I’m here to report that while The I Inside just barely held our attention, it utterly failed to repay it. Which is a polite way of saying that it features the lamest WTF ending I’ve seen in a while. Avoid.
The I Inside. Roland Suso Richter, 2003. *
The Lookout
March 27th, 2007
Joseph Gordon-Levitt played the argot-spouting teenage gumshoe who held the excellent Brick together; now he’s back for more crime with a noirish thriller about a guy with brain damage who is drawn into a heist. A former college hockey star, Chris Pratt (Gordon-Levitt) had a serious car accident, and now he can’t keep his “sequencing” straight, he’s rooming with a blind man (Jeff Daniels), and instead of living high off fat cat daddy’s dough, he’s mopping floors at the local farm bank. Enter no-goodnick Gary Spargo (Matthew Goode), with a dame named Luvlee Lemons (Isla Fisher) and a goon called Bone in tow. There’s more than a little After Dark, My Sweet in this tale, and Gordon-Levitt sells his character’s frustrating, infuriating brain malfunctions. In the end, I found The Lookout too pat and tidy; it’s slick but forgettable. Marcy enjoyed it a good deal more than me so she’s handling official About.com review duties. The Lookout opens on Friday.
The Lookout. Scott Frank, 2007. ***
