Brick (2005)

That's the story, right? Going back to the days of "China Town" with Jack Nicholson chasing lead after lead, turning corners left and right, only to find more corners. Who's duping who? We don't know until the very end in this fast-paced, hipster lingo drenched wild revival of the classic Black and White Film Noir. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (yes, the kid from Third Rock) is a brilliant hero/foil as Brendan, the bitingly dry, quick-witted, scrappy and yet reluctant detective trying to walk his way through a web of lies, more lies, murder and lots of missing drugs. His character is bright, he can read a situation like a psychic on crack, turn things to his favor in seconds and play people as deftly as he is ultimately played himself. ...And he can take a punch. The plot turns this way, then that, keeping you constantly guessing as to where it will take you next. As soon as you think you know what's going on, you don't. Nora Zehetner is a beautiful and beguiling femme fatale. "The Brian" (Matt O'Leary), who is constantly feeding Brendan his facts and keeping him on track, knows his stuff but never let's you know how. Rian Johnson has written an amazing script and directed it into a whirlwind experience of near misses, painful betrayal and love/love lost. The lingo takes a second to catch. I'm reminded of Swingers, had it been as thrilling as it was funny. The words fall into place and give the film a slick, quick delivery like the best exchanges between Bogart and Bergman, Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. Take all that and drop it into a dark, starkly brutal modern world... In a high school, of all places. There's even some quirky humor thrown in, though most of the laughs from the audience were really nervous release from all the tension built into the story. A must see.

Fmovies: 'Brick' is a film noir murder mystery featuring contemporary high school students who talk and behave like 1940's-style gangsters.

I hastily bought a ticket to 'Brick' at the Sundance Film Festival, knowing nothing about it but what was written in the Sundance catalog. I almost didn't go to the 9:15am screening but I am so glad I did. 'Brick' was by far the best of the eight films I'd seen up until then. It's one of those rare movies that keeps me grinning throughout, delighted by every turn of the grim plot.

The slang is thick but contextual. Watch closely for little camera tricks like a clock that reads 5:45 until it comes into focus and suddenly reads 8:30.

"Brick" is completely lacking in any sort of believability or even plausibility, and even if you pretend that it takes place in an alternate universe where everybody speaks 'stylized' as opposed to English, the dialogue sounds silly and ridiculous spoken by typical high school kids. I can buy this sort of stylized dialogue if spoken by gangsters and private detectives, but high school kids? Even in a fantasy universe the characters have to be believable but in this case the characters, their motives, their lives (lifestyles, more like), their way of speaking, and their mannerisms completely lack believability or plausibility and while I SHOULD be invested in the outcome of the film's events I simply cannot be because I'm reminded over and over again that these characters aren't plausible.

"Brick" is original in the sense that there are no other stylized neo-noir films set in high school, but it lacks originality in all other areas. Rian Johnson's (who is clearly, based on this film, a very talented director) direction is almost too inspired by classic noir for the film to work in its own right. It's certainly pretty to look at, and quite well-paced, but it's far too concerned with being an homage to bother with feeling genuine. The same could be said of the plot, characters, and dialogue, which are all so 'inspired' by Raymond Chandler and countless other sources that they seem far more interested in packing in homage after allusion after homage after allusion than telling a story. The story itself is mildly interesting, and some of the plot twists and turns got an 'ooh' out of me, but the whole thing feels completely phony and soulless. The sort of thing that would have been fun as a 10-minute short for film class, but is incredibly frustrating as a feature.

The acting is good from everybody involved, and Rian Johnson's shot composition is excellent, as well as the cinematography by Steve Yedlin and the score by Nathan Johnson. The script is outrageously silly and over-the-top, but at least the film is nice to look at.

A noir story in a high school setting is a reasonable idea, and this film could have been quite good, but instead of working in all the staples of a noir Johnson instead goes all out and makes something so frustratingly derivative and intensely stylized that it doesn't for a second feel plausible. No, I'm not looking for realism here, just some form of plausibility and believability. Do you question the world of "Star Wars"? Do you question the persistently stylized dialogue in classic noir films? No, of course you don't, because they feel genuine. Above everything else, "Brick" is completely phony. Not a second feels real, and by the tenth time Joseph Gordon-Levitt attempted a Marlowe routine I was already shaking my head in disbelief at the waste of talent this film was. It's so phony and so gimmicky that it becomes genuinely hard to sit through.

4/10

Brick fmovies. Well this was one of the movies I was really looking forward to see this year, not only because the whole concept of the film sounded exciting(for instance, on the DVD-box it said that it was the smartest indie flick since Donnie Darko!), but also because it came highly recommended by my brother, whom I consider(AND STILL DO)someone who truly knows what he is talking about...

And I also consider myself one of the more experienced,open-minded movie-lovers...

But this film? Come on... I thought it was extremely boring, confusing, and full of really badly articulated and impossibly hard to understand(not only because of the language that was used, but mainly because they did not speak but mumble throughout),right from the start.

I wanted to give the film a chance though, convinced the genius aspect that I had missed so far, was still coming up, and that right then and there I would fully understand the greatness of the film.

Only that didn't happen...

I found myself not caring what happened to any of the characters in the movie, and it touched me in no way whatsoever...

Why?Why?Why? Why do people love this movie? What have I missed? You now I am typing these questions, but don't answer them,please. I really don't care...

Just a little advice...Don't waste your time on this piece of you know what...

Just saw this at the Chi. International Film Festival, and must say it was the best feature film that I have seen all year. Excellent tribute to the noir genre, with sort of a Raymond Chandler-esquire slant to the dialog, a sort of hard-boiled type protagonist, and the typical twists, turns and double crosses that come with the territory. All this while taking place within the confines of a modern California high-school social scene. Somehow manages to walk the line of homage, send-up, and original film incredibly well. Parts were edge-of-your seat, parts had me cringing with pain or shock, and parts had me in stitches. Well worth seeing.

This film is nothing more than an example of someone trying to be clever and seriously failing, ending up being smothered by their own pretentiousness. I watched (endured, suffered, was tortured by) this film at the Deauville Film Festival in Sebtember 2005 and I can safely say that this was, without any doubt and by a very big margin, the worst offering that I saw all week and I have to say I've struggled to find anything worse since then, even when I leave the DVD choice to my 10 year old son. The film is dull, turgid, lifeless and shambolic, it provides no interest or excitement and was viewed by myself as a waste of 110 minutes of my existence. If you want to spend some money and waste a few hours, got to a bar, have a few drinks, believe me you'll enjoy yourself more. If looking at glowing images on a faraway wall that offer you no intellectual stimulation whatsoever without any hint or promise of enjoyment then this is the film for you. For myself, it was too much like group voluntary euthanasia and not an enjoyable experience.