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MOVIE REVIEWS
Brick
May 1, 2006
On March 31 to a limited release, and then to wider release on the 21 of April, the high school noir film Brick opened to theatres everywhere. Written and directed by newcomer Rian Johnson, Brick, a murder mystery, was a favorite at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, and won great acclaim from critics and audiences alike. The film has also garnered many awards, including the Originality of Vision award at Sundance. The film stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Nora Zehetner, Emilie de Ravin, Noah Fleiss, Matt O'Leary, Richard Roundtree, and Lukas Haas.
The film centers on brilliant high school loner Brendan Frye (Gordon-Levitt), who is still healing from his recent break up with his girlfriend, Emily Kostach (de Ravin). But when Brendan receives a desperate phone call from Emily asking for his help, and then she mysteriously goes missing that same day, Brendan takes it upon himself to discover what has happened to her. The only clues Emily has left him are three words: pin, brick, and tug. When Brendan finds Emily murdered under a bridge, this turns into more than a simple mystery, and turns into a full fledged murder investigation. Brendan enlists the help of the only student in school he respects, The Brain (Matt O'Leary), to help him uncover why this happened to Emily, while keeping his pushy assistant principal frequently updated on his investigation. With the Brain's help, Brendan is lead to Tugger (Noah Fleiss) a small time drug runner and muscle for the Pin (Lukas Haas) a big time drug dealer in the San Clemente town Brendan lives in. With help from the head cheerleader/femme fatale Laura (Zehetner), Brendan penetrates the Pin's inner circle, and discovers that the word "brick" has a much more sinister purpose than he could have ever imagined.
Brick is an incredibly visceral and amazing film. Besides being very well shot, acted, and edited, the dialogue is one of the best things about the film. The tightly written script by Johnson is razor sharp, and while he admits to borrowing from some of the work of Dashiell Hammet, the rest of the words are all his own inventions, and it is like he created his own language for these characters. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, if I could be so bold to say, does his best work in this film, and the supporting cast works wonderful as an ensemble. See Brick. You will not be disappointed.
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