"The Lookout" *** (out of four): Engaging story of a troubled young man (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, in a riveting performance) trying to piece together his life in the aftermath of a tragic car crash.

Chris Pratt is a severely troubled young man. When he’s asked to write an essay about a typical day, he can’t get past “I wake up.” He continually locks his keys in his car (thankfully, he carries a spare in his shoe) and he can’t get past a fatal car accident he caused four years ago. Chris was driving. His friends died. He went into a coma and, as one character notes, he came out of it a “different person”. All this has the makings of a self-conscious “indie” movie, but a smart script by Scott Frank (“Out of Sight”, “Get Shorty”) and a riveting performance by Joseph Gordon-Levitt make “The Lookout” an engrossing study of a deeply damaged small town boy.

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