08/22/06 Brick

Brick (2005), directed by Rian Johnson

watched Leslie (partially); DVD rental (Netflix) @ home; suggested by Joel

Set amidst a contemporary American high school, this unconventional film puts a teenage spin on the noir genre. Unassuming lead man Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), gets sucked into a shady world of local druglords, thugs, and double-crosses when he happens across the dead body of his ex-girlfriend Emily...who only days before had mysteriously tried to reach out for him in a dire time of need. However, the circumstances of Emily's disappearance and subsequent murder are all very diluted by converging characters and motives...so Brendan sets out to right a wrong by bringing her killer to justice. What this outsider possesses is determination, acute street-smarts and intellect, a peer with inside info named The Brain, and a ballsy persona to back up his detective swagger. What he doesn't have is a clue...at first. All he knows is that he needs to hide the body until something can be proven, to shake the feds and the school administration, and make cozy with the local druglord The Pin (Lukas Haas) that may provide the valid information he needs to put Emily to rest. He becomes a man obsessed with the truth, going to any cost to find it...and you start to forget just how young these characters are portraying. They have colorful names and backgrounds, all representing some metaphorical sect in society...Dode the addict, Kara the temptress, Brad the jock, Laura the rich girl, and Tugger the thug. The story is held together by creative adventure, hip street smarts, and an amazing use of dialogue. The dialogue alone holds the movie. It's hard to describe, but falls somewhere between a modern day Shakespearean dialect (to which Baz Luhrmann's pathetic "Romeo + Juliet" debacle was asinine) and a subtly genius noir commentary where every "dope rat" seems to be "on the take." And the beautiful thing about all the dialogue by theses young actors and new director/writer Johnson...none of it seems forced, becoming a melodic poetry to the beat of the streets. This movie is awesome, on every level. Now, in the immortal words of scraggly hero Brendan..."I've got knives in my eyes, I'm going home sick."

5 out of 5 stars