Brick 2005

Brick 2005

Along my recent splurge of the great missed movies of the last 10 years, I came across this absolute gem.  It stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and once again the goofy kid from 3rd Rock from the Sun proves he is a serious actor.  Brick is a modern play at film-noir set in a sunny, bright Southern California high school.  It was written and directed by Rian Johnson and was made for under $500,000.

Rian Johnson drew heavily from pulp crime novels and film-noir to create Brick, but the setting and light hearted plays on the serious nature of its own dialogue sets this film apart from other neo-noir films and the 'hard-boiled' noir classics.  The film is set in a generic So-Cal suburban neighborhood, with most of the scenes shot at an equally unnamed high school.  The script uses film-noir dialogue and pacing with modern culture and high school references.  Classic noir terms like 'sap', 'pin' for kingpin, and 'bulls' for police, pepper the dialogue to the point where I kept forgetting what decade the story was residing in.  Usually such discontinuity and juxtaposition would pull the audience away from the experience, but the fast paced, witty Chinatown banter kept me drawn in and excited for the next conversation.

The limited effects and cinematography play out well considering the setting.  There are many rough transitions, especially in the action and chase scenes, but the overall camerawork by Steve Yedlin is solid.  It incorporates some simple camera tricks and framing to make for a few dynamic shots and flashback scenes.  The scenes shot at the mouth of the cement culvert look stellar in their absolute ordinariness.

  The costumes are another area where the film stands out.  In a modern setting most everyone is dressed in the standard of jeans and t-shirts, but a few of the characters stand out and play back to the noir roots.  The character of Laura, played by Nora Zehetner, has a distinctly 1920-30s style.  At times she looks like a high class lounge singer and other like a skanky flopper, but throughout the film the costume designer has her done up with feathers in her hair, brooches, furs, and a wonderful nostalgic flair.

The Pin, Lukas Haas, dresses up like the film-noir villian he plays and his right hand man's muscle car is a perfect character choice.  The last character costume of note is the drama queen/drug dealer Kara, a potentially cross-dressed play actress portrayed by the capable Meagan Good,  who has that flair for the dramatic that fits both the film-noir homage and the fashion of a modern drama student.

The acting throughout is intentionally flat and serious, another film-noir standard, but Joseph Gordon-Levitt carries his character Brendan through a journey of violence, death, and intrigue with his stoic and quick witted delivery of perfectly antiquated lines.  Nora Zehetner's character has a few floundering moments where her intentions are unclear, but this may have been part of the deliberate mystery surrounding her character.  The rest of the cast plays out their roles in the mystery with the flat lines and deep stares expected in any noir film, but the support characters are truly what keeps the story grounded back at a modern high school.  Particular nods go out to Noah Fleiss for playing the dumb muscle perfectly and to Matt O'Leary as 'The Brain' who is Brendan's researcher and sidekick.

The plot of the movie is a film-noir investigation into the death of Brendan's, Gordon-Levitt, ex-girlfriend who was bound up with some bad people due to her drug use.  The mystery of her death in tied to a missing 'brick' of drugs that has thrown the underworld of this suburban neighborhood into chaos.  High school parking lot brawls, emotional scenes set at the 50 yard line, and even a full-on gang war keep the story moving, but deep down this is all a murder-mystery and  Brendan is the classic detective.

Brick is one of the best movies I have seen in a long time.  I am a big fan of the film-noir and neo-noir genres, but this goes beyond being only a genre piece.  It has a unique setting which adds sharp humor to an otherwise serious genre and a mix of historical and modern jargon that I have rarely seen work so well.  I would highly recommend this movie to film-noir fans and to people looking for a witty mystery movie.