Review: Brick

Our L.A. man, Thomas Leupp, recently had the chance to see BRICK
and here’s his review of the indie flick, opening today:

Rating:
8/10

Plot:

Film
noir gets a heavy dose of teen angst in this hard-boiled detective
story set in a modern-day
Southern California
high school. A bright,
brooding loner investigates the disappearance of his troubled
ex-girlfriend and soon finds himself immersed in a dangerous
underworld of drugs, dames and duplicity.

Critique:

Writer/director
Rian Johnson makes an impressive debut in this ambitious homage to
Dashiell Hammett and the hard-boiled genre he helped make famous. At
first the thought of grafting film noir onto a modern-day high
school seems odd, even laughable, but Johnson somehow makes it work.
The result is a highly entertaining mystery/thriller filled with
fine performances from a cast made up mostly of
Hollywood
up-and-comers.

Joseph
Gordon-Levitt shines in the Humphrey Bogart role as Brendan, a
teenage outsider still pining for his ex-girlfriend Emily (Emilie de
Ravin) months after their breakup. When Emily turns up dead and foul
play is suspected, Brendan takes it upon himself to track down the
folks responsible. He enlists the help of The Brain (Matt
O’Leary), whose crafty intel puts Brendan in contact with all
sorts of shady characters, including teenage drug kingpin The Pin
(Lukas Haas), his hired muscle Tug (Noah Fleiss) and femme fatal
Laura (Nora Zehetner). Turns out that Emily took a few laps around
the block after her breakup with Brendan and got herself in a nasty
predicament. In order to find the answers, Brendan must successfully
infiltrate this world while keeping the Assistant Vice Principal
(Richard Roundtree) at arm’s length.

Gordon-Levitt’s
come a long way since 3^rd Rock from the Sun and 10 Things
I Hate About You (though, interestingly enough, he’s still playing
guys in high school);

Haas is
great as an affected drug dealer who works out of his mom’s
basement and Zehetner is achingly hot as a mysterious dame with
dubious loyalties. My favorite performance, however, comes from Noah
Fleiss. He’s the perfect short-tempered high school meathead,
complete with the tricked-out muscle car and the Eminem wardrobe.

Ironically,
it’s Johnson’s strict adherence to old-school film noir that
provides the film with its only major flaws. At several points
throughout the story, the distinctly noir-ish dialogue, littered
with terms like “yeg” and “heel,” becomes a needless
distraction. Entire
exchanges are practically incomprehensible. Were it not for the
glossary provided with the press notes, I might have been hopelessly
lost. Nonetheless, an
astute observer can pretty much figure out what’s going on,
plot-wise, and the story is enough to keep the viewer interested
despite the occasionally awkward dialogue.

Kudos
to Rian Johnson for staying true to his vision. He could have easily
thrown in a few Ashton Kutchers and Lindsay Lohans, put Maroon 5 on
the soundtrack and cashed in. Thankfully, he opted to stay indie and
treat audiences to something new and refreshing.