Look (2007)

60% of critics liked it
(35 reviews)
60% of users liked it
(605 ratings)

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… More 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

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Rating, Runtime: R, 1 hr. 42 min.
Directed By: Adam Rifkin
Written By: Adam Rifkin, Rif Coogan
Genres: Drama, Comedy

In Theaters: Dec 14, 2007 Limited
On DVD: May 5, 2009
Studio: Liberated Artists

Critic Reviews

Maureen M. Hart, Chicago Tribune
The performances feel natural, improvised, and it's easy to believe this is the world we inhabit.
V.A. Musetto, New York Post
There are some funny moments, plus occasional nudity and sex, but the joke quickly wears off. What might have worked as a half-hour TV show doesn't suit itself to a feature-length film.
Jack Mathews, New York Daily News
Orwell would have loved it.
Michael Ordoña, Los Angeles Times
With its emphasis on its interweaving stories, the movie offers no commentary on the phenomenon of increasingly pried-apart privacy, positive or negative.
Matt Zoller Seitz, New York Times
Look, an unsettling, rudely funny but not entirely credible feature by the writer and director Adam Rifkin, is an ensemble narrative for the age of public surveillance.
Jan Stuart, Newsday
Beginning and ending his film with a strip tease, Rifkin suggests some leering adolescent who's gotten his hands on a pair of X-ray glasses and sees nothing but randy, flatulent fools in his midst.
Sean Axmaker, Seanax.com
Rifkin has a cynical view of human behavior and he plays it for cheap titillation and bleak humor, which is mean-spirited at best and glib at worst.
Josh Bell, Las Vegas Weekly
By the end, you're ready to call for the abolition of video surveillance, if only so that you can stop watching all these irritating characters.
Ken Hanke, Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)
Not much is what you get with this bargain-basement attempt at Altman. It has 'direct to video' written all over it
Karina Montgomery, Cinerina
If Crash had been this interesting it might have deserved that Oscar; this movie lacks polish but that is precisely what makes it work. It's a very interesting experiment, one which I found entertaining, nervewracking, and rewarding.
Jules Brenner, Filmcritic.com
The effectiveness of it in capturing our attention attests to very fine writing and editing which serve the mockumentary framework with immediate gripping power.
Andy Klein, Los Angeles CityBeat
This could have amounted to nothing more than a clever trick, but it's much more than that.
Noel Murray, AV Club
If the idea is that we're always being watched, why does it seem that in this movie, no one's really paying attention?
David Noh, Film Journal International
Rifkin skillfully interweaves plotlines in a way that makes this currently much overused device seem perkily adroit rather than tiresome.
Moriarty, Ain't It Cool Movie Reviews
This is a great example of what you can do with not a lot of money as long as you're willing to think outside the box.
Maitland McDonagh, TV Guide's Movie Guide
Rifkin's film is surprisingly compelling, if not up to dealing with the larger political issues it raises.
Glenn Whipp, Los Angeles Daily News
Look just wallows in the shameful acts. Nobody need watch.
Chad Greene, Boxoffice Magazine
Some of this isn't easy to watch, but it's all worth a Look.
Norm Schrager, Filmcritic.com
heavy on concept, not content

Read all 19 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Bruce B

I expected a lot more from this movie then what I got. Lots of T&A, beautiful young women, not real point other then we are on camera where ever we go and when someone wants to use it against us they will. One of those put the kids to bed early movies. Really not a Movie but a… More
I expected a lot more from this movie then what I got. Lots of T&A, beautiful young women, not real point other then we are on camera where ever we go and when someone wants to use it against us they will. One of those put the kids to bed early movies. Really not a Movie but a Documentary. 1/2 star, pointless.
Walter M

The stated intention of "Look" is to show how much time we spend being captured on cameras, by staging the action as if it was being filmed by security cameras. So far, so good. But the movie cheats by including dialogue that would not normally be taped, robbing the movie… More
The stated intention of "Look" is to show how much time we spend being captured on cameras, by staging the action as if it was being filmed by security cameras. So far, so good. But the movie cheats by including dialogue that would not normally be taped, robbing the movie of any ambiguity that the far superior "Red Road" developed wonderfully. What actually happens with "Look" is that the cameras show how much we lie during the course of a day while the cameras show what the truth is. All the while, we have to ask is anybody watching these images. Probably, since they are occasionally fastforwarded, indicating somebody somewhere is getting bored. The focus of a series of interlocking melodramatic storylines is a shopping mall where Sherri(Spencer Redford) and Holly(Heather Hogan), a pair of vapid teenagers, are trying on clothes in a department store where Tony(Hayes MacArthur), a store manager, is intent on having sex with anything that moves. Sherri will be content with shoplifting and and seducing her English teacher, Mr. Krebbs(Jamie McShane). As bad as some of that sounds, there are worse scenes that are almost impossible to watch while there is one perfect scene in the film that involves a car crash. All of which is emblematic of a low view of human nature with a few exceptions.
Christopher B

Short Cuts with surveillance cameras. Unfairly overlooked writer/director Rifkin creates a fascinating film by following multiple characters stories using only footage of them from various forms of video surveillance (I had no idea so much video surveillance cameras recorded audio,… More
Short Cuts with surveillance cameras. Unfairly overlooked writer/director Rifkin creates a fascinating film by following multiple characters stories using only footage of them from various forms of video surveillance (I had no idea so much video surveillance cameras recorded audio, but I'm willing to overlook that nitpick because I enjoyed the film so much). Some stories are horrifying and some simply tragic, but all of them are entertaining and well performed. It's a shame this movie never got a decent release, but much like Rifkin's best films, will eventually become hidden gems. And for Dark Backward fans, check out the advertisement on the bus!