• The Lookout review

There's a roll of cymbals during the opening credits that ushers audiences into The Lookout, the kind of nimble auditory cue that leads to the anticipation of making a discovery. Thankfully, the following 98 minutes don't disappoint when writer/director Scott Frank and Match Point star Matthew Goode strike a perfect percussion all their own in the noirish small town bank heist film starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Brick).

For Frank, The Lookout represents a transition from being a screenwriter into a first-time director who successfully has taken his talent for onscreen dialogue in films such as Out of Sight and Minority Report and translated it into a taut, tightly paced thriller. Ironically, he couldn't have found a better heavy than Goode, a British actor known for starring in lightweight romantic comedies such as Imagine Me and You and Chasing Liberty. Goode turns in a performance that he subverts the charm that has led many to call him the next Hugh Grant and turns it towards making his character, Gary, into a Midwestern drifter whose lurid magnetism is stronger than his fists.

Premiere.com recently spoke to Frank and Goode at the SXSW Film Festival where the two dished separately about their latest collaboration, The Lookout, a film that will, in many ways, compel audiences to do a double take. Appropriately enough, here's our first take with Matthew Goode.