I gave it 5 and that is generous, considering this film does not achieve many of the goals it sets itself: it is not really suspenseful, the characterization is often vague, the plot is not clear at many points (too many characters don't improve matters). There is a Hollywood gloss over this picture that depresses me; surely a French film can call upon a tradition of thrillers dating back to the post-war years: Le salaire de la peur for example. I thought of Melville of course (Le deuxieme soufflé and Le cercle rouge) and Alain Corneau (Police Python 357). The kids who would troop off to see this one will be quickly bored.There is little point in trying to single out any of the actors for praise or blame; they seem interchangeable in their roles. Daniel Auteuil looks glum most of the time--did they not pay him enough? Olivier Gourmet from those great Dardenne movies promised much, but his part was clumsily written and not really understandable.

I'll admit, THE LOOKOUT starts off on a strong footing, with an expertly-choreographed piece of action charting the fall-out from a bank robbery. It harks back to the glory days of a similar sequence in HEAT, and has you on the edge of your seat as the minutes stretch out. Unfortunately, once this is over, the rest of the film never even comes close to that quality.The direction of the film is to capture the disintegration of a group of bank robbers as they variously betray and bump each other off, while a dogged cop remains hot on their heels. And sadly, it's nowhere near as interesting or exciting as it sounds. This is one of those films that fails to feature even a single remotely sympathetic character, so that you wonder throughout why you're watching.That wouldn't matter if the calibre of the script and film-making were exceptional, but the truth is that they aren't. There's a kind of humdrum, seen-it-all-before sense of weariness about the whole production, best summed up by Daniel Auteuil's yawn-worthy cop. The sub-plots are muddled and the characters uninteresting, so that by the time the end eventually comes around you'll be wondering why you're supposed to care.

To some extent, the previous posted reviews demonstrate an attempt to save the movie from a harsh criticism. The movie indeed gathers a general vote of 5 out of 10. Sadly, this is justified. You could say the actors are well directed, which is true. D. Auteuil does a smart job, N. Kassovitz is well managed. Also, the bank robbing scene pompously shown in the trailer is intense. Finally the global scenery in Paris is a well depicted. These elements however are not sufficient to make a movie worth a watch - or worth a better vote - without a story. The numerous inconsistencies do not help. I won't unveil any spoiler, but you will ask yourself oh so many times about the storyline being so lazily drawn up, and about the characters' conduct; and you will feel cheated as well. This movie indeed resorts way too much to ellipsis to avoid explanation when it does not simply goes against any obvious choice that a reasonable man would make. And forget about the trailer and the first scene: le guetteur (the sniper) is not a sharpshooter movie, neither is it about the psychology of these type of soldier. It is an excuse to develop a police investigation out of nowhere, on which you will probably still ask yourself how it came up at the end credits.

What's better than one French policier? Answer: another French policier. If this falls slightly below recent efforts like 36, Quai des Orfevres, it's still far from chopped liver. Daniel Auteuil, packing a tad more weight than of late - possibly for his role of Cesar in the great Pagnol trilogy that he is remaking even as we speak, both directing and taking on the role created by the immortal Raimu - plays the vigilante cop determined to catch the sniper who took out half his squad. He tells us this in an ultimately meaningless opening sequence when he has the sniper in an interview room. We then cut back to two days previously when Auteuil had his squad waiting to catch a gang of bank robbers red- handed. They would have done, too, had it not been for the sniper, Kominsky, who picked off the cops from a rooftop. After this things get a tad convoluted and if it weren't for stiffs piling up we may well wonder who is doing all the coming and going. It's shot in a drab non- color color with blue the predominant shade which suits the downbeat tone. Worth a look.