Lookout, The (2007)

IMDB rating: 7.40

Plot: An admired high school hockey player (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) with a bright future foolishly takes a drive in the night with his girl friend and two other friends with his headlights off with devastating results. The former athlete is left with a brain injury that prevents him from remembering many things for extended periods of time. To compensate, he keeps notes in a small notebook to aid him in remembering what he is to do. He also lives with a blind friend (Jeff Daniels) who aids him. Obviously, with the mental incapacitation, he is unable to have meaningful work. Thus he works as a night cleaning man in a bank. It is there he comes under the scrutiny of a gang planning to rob the bank. The leader (Matthew Goode) befriends him and gets him involved with a young woman (Isla Fisher) who further reels him in. After they get close and after reeling him in with his own failures, the bank plan unfolds. Confused but wanting to escape his current existence, he initially goes along with the scheme. After realizing he is being used, he attempts to stop the robbery, which of course immediately goes awry. Bruce McGill and Alberta Watson also co-star as the young man’s parents, who still search for the person that was there before the tragic crash.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)

IMDB rating: 7.30

Plot: Eddie’s friends are numerous, but the term friends is suspect. As a small time hood Eddie is about to go back to jail. In order to escape this fate he deals information on stolen guns to the feds. Simultaneously he is supplying arms to his bank robbing/kidnapping hoodlum chums. But who else is dealing with the feds? Who gets the blame for snitching on the bank robbers?