Look

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

At times, it seems video surveillance is omnipresent in America, and Adam Rifkin (Underdog) spends the better part of two hours asserting just that in his fiction feature Look. This motion picture gains a historical footnote as the first U.S. mainstream movie to depict events solely through the "eyes" of surveillance video cameras. The preponderance of action unfurls in San Fernando Valley offices, stores, and shopping malls, where we witness security-camera footage of character interactions and events that would likely never occur if the perpetrators knew they were being "watched." In one subplot, Marty (Ben Weber), a beleaguered insurance salesman alienated by his co-workers, makes brazenly sexual passes at his female colleagues, secretly hatching a darker plan of his own on the side. Meanwhile, in another locale -- that of a department store at the Northridge Fashion Center shopping mall -- a chauvinistic floor manager named Tony takes full-scale sexual advantage of each of his female co-workers, letting all his inhibitions fly out the window in the "secrecy" of the back room. And in the same store, two minors, Holly (Heather Hogan) and Sherri (Spencer Redford), shop for seductive apparel in a twisted plot to seduce and presumably blackmail a high-school instructor. On a darker note, Rifkin follows convenience-store employees attempting to "bring down" a cadre of serial murderers tagged as "The Candid Camera Killers," whose doings attract the attention of police cameras. Other perspectives included in the film include those of ATM cameras, robot security cameras, and all sorts of other surveillance devices of varying ingenuity, all of which catch shocking behavior and are used to follow a myriad of substories. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 1
• Screen: Color
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 (Alternate Wide Screen)
• Audio: Dolby Digital Stereo
• Features:
  • A LOOK Behind the Scenes
  • Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Adam Rifkin, Producers Brad Wyman and Barry Schuler and Actor Hayes MacArthur
  • Alternate & Deleted Scenes
  • Director Adam Rifkin: Outtakes
  • Trailer
  • TV Spot

AWARDS

• AFI Fest

•     Film Presented - 2007

• Chicago International Film Festival

•     Film Presented - 2007

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Jamie McShane - Barry Krebbs
       Spencer Redford - Sherri Van Haften
       Hayes MacArthur - Tony Gilbert
       Nichelle Hines - Lydia
       Ben Weber - Marty
       Paul Schackman - Ben
       Chris Williams - George Higgins
       Jennifer Fontaine - Louise
       Giuseppe Andrews - Willie
       Miles Dougal - Carl
       Rhys Coiro - Ace
       Sebastian Feldman - Ron
       Kimberly Quinn - Anne Krebbs
       Heather Hogan - Holly
       Ryan Cutrona - Mr. Bates
       Valerie Breiman - Stephanie
       Tom Hodges - Stuart

• Director:

  Adam Rifkin

• Producer:

  Brad Wyman, Barry Schuler

• Screenwriter:

  Adam Rifkin

• Cinematographer:

  Ron Forsythe

• Composer (Music Score):

  BT

• Musical Direction/Supervision:

  3 AM

• Editor:

  Martin Apelbaum

• Associate Producer:

  Daniel Weisinger

• Executive Producer:

  Donald Kushner, Richard Bishop

• Costume Designer:

  Erica Fyhrie

• Sound/Sound Designer:

  John Robotham, Steve Tushar

• First Assistant Director:

  Daniel Katzman

• Casting:

  Deanna Brigidi

• Visual Effects Supervisor:

  Scott Billups

• Supervising Sound Editor:

  Jesse Pomeroy

• Line Producer:

  Alwyn Hight Kushner

• Supervising Sound Editor:

  Paul Stanley

• Re-Recording Mixer:

  Andy Hay

• Stunts Coordinator:

  Carrie Sweeney

• Second Unit Director:

  Ashley Cahill

REVIEW:

• Look is what you would have gotten if Robert Altman had limited himself to working with surveillance cameras. That's more a comment on the film's multi-story narrative structure than its quality. But, truth be told, the quality is better than we had any right to expect from a hack like Adam Rifkin (Detroit Rock City), especially when he's executing an ambitious technical gimmick that might have tripped up a seasoned auteur. Look could have actually been sunk by two different questions: 1) Would filming a coherent narrative on only surveillance cameras even be possible? 2) If so, would the cameras' detachment keep the characters at arm's length, reducing our ability to sympathize with them? Rifkin solves both issues satisfactorily. He doesn't cheat on the gimmick, confining the action to mostly public spaces (and one nanny cam), yet he still advances the intertwining stories in believable ways that give the characters sufficient dimension. What's more, he saves his one zoom-in for the moment of greatest possible emotional impact. Rifkin's goal is similar to Paul Haggis' goal in Crash. Look hits on a variety of hot-button social issues -- sexual harassment, child abduction, statutory rape, terrorism -- around Los Angeles, almost entirely excluding the mundane. Yet this small production is far less bombastic and preachy than the 2005 Best Picture winner. For every mysterious package left on a bus by a Middle Eastern man, there's a convenience store clerk playing goofy music on his synthesizer while his friend slam dances into the potato chip aisle. But Rifkin's biggest success may be his cast of unknowns, who are equal to the pseudo-documentary realism required by the surveillance medium. Look would have been a lot less interesting without the central gimmick, but then again, that's what good gimmicks do -- give standard material an absorbing new twist. ~ Derek Armstrong, Rovi