Review of Brick (2006) by Moe J — 26 Aug 2012

"Brick", the debut feature of writer-director Rian Johnson, has good acting, some interesting scenes, and a cool detective noir score, but I could hardly understand a bloody thing that went on.

It's got an intriguing premise: A murder mystery set in high school. Brendan Frye (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a teenaged outsider who eats lunch by himself behind the shcool. One day, he gets a phone call from his ex, Emily (Emilie de Ravin). She babbles disjointedly, saying words like "brick", "tug", and "the pin". She suddenly hangs up. The next day, she tells him to forget what she said. The next morning, Brendan finds her dead body in a trench.

Brendan then decides to take matters into his own hands by trying to find out who killed Emily. He enlists the help of an old friend nicknamed The Brain (Matt O'Leary), who is solving a Rubix cube when we're first introduced to him.

We later find out that Tug (Noah Fleiss) is an angry, often violent henchman to a handicapped drug dealer nicknamed The Pin (Lukas Haas). Brendan infiltrates his group to dig up information on his deceased ex. While doing this, he finds out that the "brick" Emily was talking about was a brick of heroin. Then, stories about people being killed or hospitalized by a defective brick start spreading.

There's also a girl named Laura (Nora Zehetner), who's with a pompous jock named Brad (Brian White), who's always raging about how the football coach won't let him play. They're both somehow connected to The Pin.

Oh, I almost forgot about Dode (Noah Segan), a druggie who hangs out behind a coffee and pie shop, and an actress named Kara (Meagan Good), who had a sort-of relationship with Brendan back when he was a freshman. He often comes to her for information, usually treating her coldly.

When I read about this film, I thought it sounded pretty cool. I liked the idea of a film noir with teenagers, it had gotten good reviews, and the lead actor was Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who's probably my favourite actor. And "Brick" did sort of intrigue me. Gordon-Levitt is solid as usual, there are some clever bits of humor, and there are some intensely staged scenes that I admired (eg. When Brendan is attacked and chased by a knife-wielding high school student.).

But alas, the movie has a nearly fatal flaw: It's confusing as hell.

Seriously, half the time, I didn't know what was happening. I don't think it's the script that's the problem, but the way the actors talk. They often mumble, whisper, or speak way too quickly for us to know what they're really saying. Because of this, I was totally lost plot-wise.

I'm not sure whether I should say you should see it. It has some good qualities, no doubt about that, but I had a very tough time hearing the dialogue. Here's what I'll do: I just watched it last night on DVD, so I'm not going to watch it again right now. I'll wait a couple of months and watch it again with subtitles so I can get a better understanding of what went on. You might want to do the same if you want to see "Brick", unless you have Vulcan hearing. Until then, I'm sort of stuck in the middle.

My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4 stars.