SummaryBrick, while taking its cues and its verbal style from the novels of Dashiell Hammett, also honors the rich cinematic tradition of the hard-boiled noir mystery, here wittily and bracingly immersed in fresh territory – a modern-day Southern California neighborhood and high school. (Focus Features)
SummaryBrick, while taking its cues and its verbal style from the novels of Dashiell Hammett, also honors the rich cinematic tradition of the hard-boiled noir mystery, here wittily and bracingly immersed in fresh territory – a modern-day Southern California neighborhood and high school. (Focus Features)
A Big Sleep with underage bozos, a Maltese Falcon where the stuff that dreams are made of rests in the lockers of a well-worn high school, Brick is a remarkable oddity, audacious and engaging.
With a superb lead turn by rising star Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rian Johnson’s debut is a smart, original neo-noir that works as an ingenious mindgame as well as a slick Hollywood calling card.
Well written, Well acted, solid artful piece. The Film Noir/Hard boiled "who dunnit" feel fits really well in the director's childhood California high school setting while only feeling forced for brief moments. It's in my top ten films for sure. The pace is for the patient, and the entire vibe requires an understanding or appreciation of Film Noir. Maybe not for everyone, but I saw it as an incredibly well written script with an obvious intended goal for the film.
Brick marks writer/director Rian Johnson's debut with style and wit. A contemporary high school setting with characters who talk and act as if they were in a 30s or 40s noir. This subtle and sly style of humor allows Brick to be tense one minute, and gut-bustingly hilarious the next. It may still be the director's most creative work thus far.
Mainly, it's a clever gimmick, cleverly wrought, offering further evidence that you can dress up the student body in all manner of garb for all types of genres.
First-time writer-director Rian Johnson's gimmick is that his SoCal teens talk like film-noir yeggs and dames, slinging hard-boiled shade and spitting out terse, rat-a-tat dialogue peppered with slang that was yesterday's news 40 years before they were born. But the result is, against all odds, marvelously entertaining.
This is neither the noir world of old '40s movies, of which he's clearly fond, nor something new and original enough to fit the concept. Instead, it feels like a blueprint for someone else to figure out.
One of the best films of 2006.
A well written film noir thriller transplanted to a modern day southern Californian high school.
It shouldn't work, but surprisingly it hits it out of the park.
For me it was okay. I don't see it being this unbelievable movie or crazy good, but I do get why it's cult classic I guess. For me it lacked something and felt more like student project but maybe that's the reason why I didn't feel it like some awesome movie as acting also at times seemed weird (besides Joseph's performance). I did like soundtrack though. Dunno, maybe with another watch I would see more as towards end part it got more interesting but first part for me felt a bit boring at times.
This film is reminiscent of a black and white detective film, so as such it is relatively 'film noir'-ish I'd say. I say that due to the sort of traditional dialogue used and the tone of the film which is set by quite old fashioned PI type music (almost sleazy jazz style music in parts, while in others there's an almost ethereal piece played which sounds a little like wind chimes blowing in the breeze). The main character is a bit of a loner, which also makes me think back to traditional detective films. It is quite gritty and urban, I think its fair to say. I suppose you could call it a mystery drama - I wouldn't categorise it as a thriller as such, although often these days mystery films are also thrillers but this particular film isn't particularly fast paced and it doesn't feature big visual effects or the like, so I wouldn't say it applies in this instance. I felt it was quite an atmospheric film - there's a fairly strong sense of tension throughout, as we wonder why things are the way they are. I found myself wanting to get the answers the main character, Brendan, seeks. It does well at keeping things quite mysterious. I noticed that there were many quite short scenes and often these would fade out to black before (obviously) the next one appeared, which adds to the feeling of being only able to part see the story, the sense of being kept in the dark somehow. As well as the music being almost ethereal or ghost like, there are also scenes in which you can hear what sounds like whooshing noises and peoples voices sound to be echoing - considering this is in the open, nowhere where there'd obviously be an echo, so its done for atmospheric effect.
The plot is relatively slow but I didn't feel it became especially bland or boring, so it kept my interest throughout. I quite liked that Brendan seemed one of the less popular, more bland high school guys - being a bit of an underdog, I felt I was on his side.
I liked some of the camera angles used during key scenes, which made it harder to see precisely what happened and made me jump slightly at times. I thought it added to the impact of the scene and also to the overall mysterious tone.
Cast wise, Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Brendan. I thought he was well cast, seeming quite believable as the loner and down-and-out type. He comes across as quite determined and anxious at different times but not unafraid to attempt a bargain. Other cast members include Noah Fleiss as Tugger, Noah Segan as Dode, Lukas Haas as The Pin and Nora Zehetner as Laura.
This film was clearly not made with a big budget but I think its done well regardless, as there isn't always a need for masses of effects and I felt it was quite gripping, if but a bit disorientating, due to the camera angles used and the creepy musical score at times. If you happen to suffer from motion sickness then this film may not be ideal as there are times when the camera suddenly turns down quickly, which may take the viewer by surprise.
Content wise, this film features some strong language and moderate violence, including gunfire and some blood is shown. There are also drug references but nothing else particularly graphic. This film carries a 15 rating to reflect this.
Overall I feel this was a good film - I liked the tone of it and the main character but I did find the plot somewhat confusing and it is quite slow, which won't suit all, hence I'm opting for the 4 star rating overall.
Yes I'd recommend this film, as I felt it was quite gritty and atmospheric, featuring a good performance by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and good use of music, despite the plot being a bit slow. Its worth a watch.
Brick is the type of movie to really piss me off. It feels so self-important and, honestly, gives off an air of being better than everybody else. This comes through loud-and-clear in the dialogue as it just feels like an immature and juvenile film that was made by some obnoxious film school student. Tragically, I do like Rian Johnson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, but this film annoyed the living hell out of me. The plot is aimless and stupid and when it all comes together at the end, it somehow becomes dumber. A film made on a shoestring budget, it certainly shows a lot of directorial promise for Johnson (that was certainly fulfilled with Looper), but man oh man was I let down by this. Brick is the film equivalent of an annoying teenager who thinks he's smarter than everybody else.
I am a big fan of film noir and I am open to the concept of neo-noir but this didn't do anything for me. It seemed to be off the pace that it should be keeping up with and although it has some good noir elements to it it didn't provide much entertainment value.----
ACTING was all round quite odd. The characters seemed pretty unrealistic and dull to me, although there was some good acting. I have to be honest, Gordon Levitt was more or less abysmal. ----PLOT. All the characters seemed dark and there was constant themes of mistrust, which is obviously in keeping with the noir side. Except, film noir was made at a dark time (40s-50s) and I think that now, it is irrelevant to use the same plot devices and themes. It just doesn't work, especially with a colour picture. ----DIRECTING. It was OK, but it didn't save this film from being a drag. ----CINEMATOGRAPHY: Well, a dark theme film and there is a dark tone to it, but I think the film was too active and full on as oppose to being kept subtle with clever fighting scenes blended in, like a noir film should be. ----Overall, I thought the idea of basing a noir in a high school COULD have been good, but was ultimately risky and in the end I think it just didn't work. A modern day Noir (neo noir) shouldn't stray too far away from the old 40s/50s films, after all, it is based on them. Too many elements were changed in Brick and the elements that remained didn't fit it as a result of the off-pace story and the unnecessarily unspecific character depth. Remember, characters like Sam Spade were dark, suspicious and cynical, but not completely distant to the point where we can't relate to them. ----Final thought: Brick tries to borrow from the classic noir but by trying to make it too modern it's changed the dynamic and become a failure.