DIRECTOR RIFKIN'S 'LOOK' DOESN'T DESERVE A SECOND GLANCE.

Byline: GLENN WHIPP 

>FILM CRITIC

In the opening moments of "Look," writer-director Adam Rifkin hits us with some facts about our current Big Brother world. We are told there are 30 million surveillance cameras in the United States generating more than 4 billion hours of video every week. On any given day, the average American is captured approximately 200 times.

It's a critical issue, and to examine it, Rifkin first takes us inside a department store dressing room where two teenage girls, conveniently braless, strip down to their G-strings while trying on lingerie, which they will then shoplift without consequence. (Maybe the in-house cop became a little too distracted by the girls' shenanigans.)

Rifkin rarely deviates from this initial tone, delivering a movie that possesses the same amount of insight and entertainment that could be derived from watching the Fox Reality Channel for any random 102 minutes during the day.

Rifkin inconsistently employs a surveillance camera aesthetic for a series of interwoven stories about people caught on camera with their pants down (literally and figuratively). One of the aforementioned Lolitas (Spencer Redford) brazenly tries to bed her happily married high-school English teacher (Jamie McShane). A family-man attorney (Paul Schackman) uses a spy camera to watch his nanny while enjoying secret trysts with his gay lover.

Meanwhile, a department store manager (Hayes MacArthur) takes inventory of nearly every female employee in the store, nearly all of whom are eager to steal away to the storeroom the minute he grabs them from behind. An office nerd (Ben Weber) endures constant humiliation from co-workers. A keyboard-playing convenience store clerk (Giuseppe Andrews) has a brush with the "Candid Camera Killers."

Watching "Look," you have to put aside the obvious flaws in the conceit.

No, spy cams don't typically pick up audio, much less fully miked conversations. And yes, in order to get pictures like those seen in the movie, a camera would be rather obvious to its subject. (But, hey, we live in an exhibitionistic world, no?)

Such things could be overlooked if Rifkin displayed a little imagination in exploring the issues of personal privacy, public security and why human beings love to watch other human beings and why, increasingly, shameful acts are becoming part of that equation.

Instead "Look" just wallows in the shameful acts. Nobody need watch.

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

[e-mail]

LOOK - One star

>R: strong sexual content, pervasive language, violence, drug use.

>Starring: Spencer Redford, Hayes MacArthur, Paul Schackman.

>Director: Adam Rifkin.

>Running time: 1 hr. 42 min.

>Playing: Landmark's Nuart Theater in West Los Angeles.

>In a nutshell: The equivalent of any random 102 minutes spent watching the Fox Reality Channel.