Brick Reviews

"Throw one at me if you want, hash head. I've got all five senses and I slept last night, that puts me six up on the lot of you."

Brick is an interesting little flick, a motion picture you admire and appreciate for its ambitions rather than conventionally love or enjoy. Independently financed and produced on a paltry budget, the film is the directorial debut of Rian Johnson, who wrote the script in the mid-1990s and spent years trying to raise suitable financing. Ultimately amassing funds from friends and family, he set out to make the movie he wanted to make, and the result is a quality neo-noir thriller that deservedly developed into a cult classic. In essence, Brick is a contemporary film noir inspired by old-timey detective stories and classic films like Chinatown and Miller's Crossing. There's plenty of ingenuity in Johnson's superlative script, which took years to write, but the lack of budget and filmmaking experience somewhat betrays the project's ambitiousness.

In California, high school student Brendan Frye (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) receives a distressed phone call from his ex-girlfriend Emily (Emilie de Ravin) asking him for help. Baffled by Emily's call, Brendan sets out to investigate, enlisting the help of his friend The Brain (Matt O'Leary) to find her. But her dead body is soon discovered, prompting Brendan to uncover the full story behind what happened to the only girl he has ever loved. Combing his high school's seedy underbelly, Brendan becomes entangled in a perilous world fraught with drugs, femme fatales, stoners and crime figures, all of whom want to prevent him from finding answers.

Johnson did his homework. Since Brick is an overt homage to film noir, the writer-director read several hardboiled noir novels, most notably the works of Dashiell Hammett, including Red Harvest and The Maltese Falcon. In essence, the gimmick behind Brick is that Johnson transplants the noir clichés of the 1940s to a contemporary high school setting. Despite murder seeming out of place in school, the transplantation is surprisingly effective, incorporating a loner hero, a kingpin figure, a femme fatale with shady loyalties, and so on. Plus, the idea of drugs at school is not unheard of. Johnson's approach is distinctly neo-noir, giving the characters stylised, anachronistic dialogue. Indeed, the high schoolers speak in sophisticated, mannered bursts of verbiage, as if they've stepped right out of a noir from the '40s or '50s. Some compare Brick to Donnie Darko, which is a fair comparison. Like Richard Kelly's breakout feature, Brick is a small independent movie that's refreshing and original, with a conceptual framework more innovative than 99% of Hollywood's output.

Holding Brick back from lofty brilliance is, alas, the filmmaking. Johnson went on to become a remarkable director, yet he was still finding his feet here, and it's obvious. Although the cinematography is often cleverly old-fashioned and evokes the noirs of yesteryear, the pacing is too slow from time to time, and the film carries a rather amateurish glaze. One must imagine what Brick could have been like if it had been as stylishly crafted as something like Shane Black's Kiss Bang Bang. Still, there's a lot to admire about Brick, especially since it was made by a bunch of amateurs and reportedly edited on a home computer. Additionally, the music by Rian's brother Nathan is low-key but effective and stylish, adding a nice degree of atmosphere to the proceedings.

In 2005, mainstream audiences only knew Gordon-Levitt from his appearance on the television show 3rd Rock From the Sun, so Brick presented the rising star with the chance to stretch his acting range. And heavens me, Gordon-Levitt ran with the opportunity. He plays a much darker role here and brings a lot of maturity and density to his performance. Plus, he sounds just right delivering Johnson's unique brand of dialogue. Alongside him is Lukas Haas, who's exceptional as The Pin. Haas plays the role as someone of authority, yet a degree of vulnerability also shows through. Also excellent is Nora Zehetner playing Laura; she's an astoundingly beautiful presence who fits the material perfectly. She's a soft-spoken actress with limited range, yet she's always believable, and it's baffling that the actress has not yet catapulted to big-time stardom. Meanwhile, Aussie native Emilie de Ravin plays Emily here. The Lost actress is remarkable, handling the role's requirements with impressive finesse.

Although it has no mainstream appeal, Brick is a gritty, creative twist on film noir conventions that is enthralling more often than not. Despite its somewhat amateurish construction, it's a must-see for fans of indie films, noir classics and hardboiled detective tales. It's 110 minutes of strange characters, distinctively poetic dialogue, and an unusual, offbeat flavour. If you have the patience to stick with it, the film is well worth checking out.

7.7/10

After hearing so many good things about this flick, I was really eager to check it out and I was expecting something great. Unfortunately, even though I thought it was indeed pretty good, I must admit that I was actually little bit disappointed by the whole thing. In my opinion, it was basically based on a gimmick which consisted in putting a film noir in a modern settings with a bunch of teenagers which was an interesting approach but it was not really mind-blowing. Somehow, this gimmick was a big critical success and, as a result, it became a cult-classic with many fans but I never thought it was really fascinating. Still, if you put this aside, it remains a well directed picture with a very good performance by the always reliable Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Later on, Gordon-Levitt would work again with Rian Johnson and they would make the even more successful ‘Looper’. On top of that, in the near future, Rian Johnson will follow up J.J. Abrams and will direct one of those new Star Wars installments so it seems that his career is doing pretty well right now. Anyway, to conclude, coming back to our main feature, even though I don’t think it is really a masterpiece, it is still a pretty good feature, a really solid directing debut, and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Brendan Frye: So now we've shaken the tree. Let's wait and see what falls on our heads.

Brendan is a loner and keeps to himself, until one day he gets a phone call from his ex girlfriend Emily saying that she needs his help and she cannot trust anyone but him. Brendan drops everything to help this girl who he still loves with all his heart. Emily denies that she needs help and tells Brendan that he would be better off to drop things and go on with his life. Brendan does not follow her advice and the next morning he finds her dead at the entrance to a tunnel. Brendan then decides the best way to get information is to pressure her new friends with questions and show The Pin ( a local drug runner) that he can be trusted. With the help of his loyal friend The Brain, Brendan looks for the truth but he may not like what he finds.

The Brain: When the "Upper-Crust" does shady deeds, they do them all over town, and the pitch is, they got these little symbols so they can tell each without word getting around


Brick is a tale of drugs, murder but most of all it is a story of undying love. Brendan has these strong feelings for Emily and she has moved on to a new group of friends and an unhealthy lifestyle. Brendan still cannot help but have feelings for her. Even though they are in high school and young he seems to have this heartfelt real connection to the one girl who wants nothing to do with him. Even though circumstances have made it difficult for him to be with her when she calls him for help he has no hesitations, he immediately starts asking questions and taking names. He gets the info he needs to try and bail her out, but unfortunately he is to late to do so and he is left investigating her murder and not knowing for certain which of her "upper class" friends can be trusted or not. Brendan is just an average guy who had his heart stomped on by a girl he really cared about. Whether or not you believe in high school romance at some point everyone feels what Brendan feels, but sadly unlike Brendan many people would not go the extra mile to help protect the ones they care about.


There is so much going on this film, it is easy to forget that the main setting is a California high school. There is never a shot of a classroom and there is no real evidence other then one chat with A Vice Principal that this film is set in a high school. There are so many times when you look at the situation Brendan is in you think that discipline would go way beyond a V.P. Brendan had played lead detective before and this is mentioned in his intensified chat with the V.P. All though Brendan had played detective in a case that involved high school students, but this time around it is clearly stated The Pin is a 26 year old non high school student. This simply just means unless Brendan can catch someone in the act of drug running directly on school ground there could be no punishment handed down by school administration.

Brick is a smart mystery film, it is careful with the amount of information it divulges at one time setting itself up for an ending that you did not see coming. People may try and claim the ending was predictable, but really there was no clues through out the entire film and the lead you in the complete other direction. You cannot just claim you could see it coming because you were blindsided by the outcome and you do not want to admit they had you fooled. It is okay to be fooled by a mystery, if you can call every little thing that is going to happen it makes for a boring movie with no suspense or intensity. The intensity built in Brick because Brendan had no idea which of Emily's friends he could trust and believe. He was getting bits of information and could never really know if it was the actual story or just another lie to take attention off of the real killer. When the film is all over it becomes clear how smart the mystery of Brick really is. Try being the one who wants all the answers and you are asking sketchy people the questions, very few people would risk their lives like Brendan did.

Brick had its own form of high school lingo. There are some times when they just get going in the slang words and you cannot help but remember some of the ones that your social circle used. There are words like bulls instead of cops. There are many more and the entire cast looks and sounds like high school students. Joseph Gordon Levitt looks younger then he actually is with the Harry Potter glasses and the long curly hair. However despite looking younger, Levitt shows a maturity in the role of Brendan that he has not shown in any of his other works. Levitt is able to capture the darkness that surrounds Brendan, and he is able to make Brendan real. He gives Brendan real emotions and real issues. Joseph Gordon Levitt gives the character of Brendan life, he gives him morals and beliefs and makes Brendan one of those characters we can hope for. Finally a character comes to life that only has good intentions and does not lose site of these intentions along the way.

Brendan Frye: No, bulls would gum it. They'd flash their dusty standards at the wide-eyes and probably find some yegg to pin, probably even the right one. But they'd trample the real tracks and scare the real players back into their holes, and if we're doing this I want the whole story. No cops, not for a bit.

Brick is a solid mystery, a film that makes you think. You will be blown away by the incredible acting, the hard hitting suspense and the twisted outcome will hopefully make you think twice about who you can trust in life.

Brendan Frye: I can't trust you! Brad was a sap. You weren't. You were with him, and so you were playing him. So you're a player. With you behind me I'd have to tie one eye up watching both your hands, and I can't spare it.

O Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) ανακαλύπτει τη φίλη του Emily (Emilie de Ravin) νεκρή στην είσοδο ενός αγωγού αποχέτευσης. Και αποφασίζει να βρει ποιος την έβαλε εκεί, ποιος τράβηξε την σκανδάλη και για ποιο λόγο. Και δεν έχει σκοπό να σταματήσει αν δεν το ανακαλύψει. Και αγνοώντας το γεγονός ότι στο δρόμο για τις απαντήσεις που ψάχνει θα υποχρεωθεί να κάνει slalom ανάμεσα από ναρκωτικά, Kingpins, όπλα, μοιραίες γυναίκες και υπερβολικά cool διαλόγους.

Το περίεργο βέβαια είναι πως όλοι οι πρωταγωνιστές είναι έφηβοι που φοιτούν σε λύκειο της Νότιας Καλιφόρνια και έχουνε πρότυπα συμπεριφοράς και ομιλίας τον Humphrey Bogart και την Mary Astor από το Γεράκι της Μάλτας (1941). Ο δημιουργός Rian Johnson, στην πρώτη του ταινία, είναι βαθιά επηρεασμένος από τα αστυνομικά μυθιστορήματα των 30’s και τα film noir των 40’s. Και αποφασίζει να μεταφέρει το μαγευτικό κλίμα των παραπάνω στη σύγχρονη κοινωνία και στον μικρόκοσμο της εφηβικής ζωής, με τρόπο άκρως πειστικό – μετά το αρχικό μούδιασμα- και με τεχνική που προδίδει βαθιά μελέτη του είδους που θέλει να εκπροσωπεί. Και ακριβώς επειδή η μελέτη κρύβει σεβασμό και πάθος, ο Johnson δημιουργεί ένα φιλμ με αποστομωτική ατμόσφαιρά και επιβλητικούς χαρακτήρες, οι τελευταίοι εξαιρετικά σκιαγραφημένοι από τα φρέσκα πρόσωπα που πρωταγωνιστούν. Οι ερμηνείες είναι σοβαρές και αδιαμφισβήτητες δίνοντας ένα τόνο παράλογου ρεαλισμού στα διάφορα «the ape blows or I clam» που εκστομίζουν με ρυθμό πολυβόλου. Ντυμένο με την κατάλληλη μουσική υπόκρουση και μονταρισμένο σε ένα Mac το Brick είναι η υπενθύμιση που χρειάζεσαι για να ενημερώνεσαι συχνά πυυκνά για την επόμενη ταινία του Rian Johnson.

Ambition might sometimes carry a film a long way, and hopefully the film itself will take it the rest of the way. Other times, once the ambition ends, the movie is left face down, and in the case of Brick, it’s the latter. It’s basically about a guy trying to figure out why his ex-girlfriend asked him for help, because she’s recently turned up dead. It’s a mystery-solving detective film that pays homage to classic film-noir, but has the unfortunate setting of high school life, including a full cast of teenagers.

The movie in and of itself isn’t bad. The acting is decent (for teenagers), the plot isn’t anything new but not so boring that it wouldn’t work, it’s shot well, edited well, and the dialogue is great. The only problem is that it’s acted out by seventeen year olds. It doesn’t exactly sound like a huge set back, as it is a neat idea, but it fails miserably and leaves the movie absolutely stained with unintentionally laughably bad scenarios; such as a kid sporting a cape, walking with a cane (without actually needing one), and having a driver (presumably his mother) take him here and there in a van. The van has a lamp in it too, in case the dome light isn’t functional. This adult-themes life style and dialogue that is presented in a teenage environment works when it’s comical, ala Rushmore, but in Brick it’s not meant to be taken lightly. In fact, I’m unsure what the tone of the film is supposed to be, but it should have been marketed as a comedy.

It might have worked a little bit better if there was at least one child that wasn’t so keen to the fast paced manner in which people spoke in the forties, or maybe didn’t know at least one obscure phrase or figure of speech. But no, every student in this very lenient high school is like a smaller, less talented, hipster reincarnation of Humphrey Bogart. When we do see an actual adult (there are only two), they don’t appear to be bothered by anything. One, a parent, politely serves juice to her son and his friends, who are literally everywhere. The other, a vice principal, or a VP (that’s what they’re called), is almost threatened by the students, and allows them to do virtually whatever they want. As if the student and the VP are rival police officers, they fight and bicker, and make demands. Anybody under the age of eighteen may be moved by scenes like this, but everybody over the age of eighteen should see how ridiculous it is. Even the thug, who is white and looks like a D student, or a shop class enthusiast, is hip to all the intensely asinine conversations.

Something else that bothered me was how inconsistent it is. I might be simply nit-picking, but the movie sort of opens the doors to my complaint. The entire film, all the characters are so hip to knowledge, and info, and it seems to be such a valuable currency, and everybody wants something for it, but nobody has a cellular phone. If I’m to believe this is a high school in California, I’m never going to believe it if only one person has a cellular phone (which they borrowed from their mother). Instead, people still use and call payphones, and write notes that tell you to be here and this time. Even when a student is killed, and is missing for several days, there are no police interviews, no sort of investigation, nothing. The body just sits around and rots, I guess.

Another very silly problem that I had was when the main character starts having coughing fits. He doesn’t smoke, and seems fine, so they really come out of nowhere. He then begins to have a hard time walking, and seems very weak. Eventually we find out it’s because he has “swallowed a lot of blood”. Well, I’m somebody that has actually had the misfortune of swallowing a large portion of their own blood, so I know what happens. I also have been under the stress and displeasure of doing strenuous work with little to no sleep, and coughing fits and this insane weakening of the body isn’t a side effect. Especially when we’re talking about somebody who is probably seventeen years old. There are some aspects of films that I may not believe, but I don’t know any better, so it really doesn’t matter. But something like this in my mind is total common knowledge. Swallowing your own blood doesn’t cause coughing fits, nor does it make somebody have a hard time walking. I think at own point he collapses and blacks out. It’s just one of those things that is so obviously overblown, it doesn’t work within a “serious” film. It just comes off goofy and laughable.

There isn’t much else to say. It feels like a total fantasy world that I simply can’t allow myself to believe in. There is no balance to make me believe it’s feasible, and the convoluted plot doesn’t help. By the end of the movie, any questions you may or may not have are answered by a little monologue given by our lead detective that explains everything, ala Vanilla Sky, a technique I despise as it either belittles the audience, or admits to having a poorly executed story. In the end, I felt like I was watching an extended, live action episode of Rugrats, or Muppet Babies. Some people argue that it’s a great interpretation of film-noir, going so far as to create a genre: neo-noir. But what if it were 12 year olds? Would it still be a great interpretation? What if it were 8 year olds? The point is, I think believe age matters with this movie. Once you’re years older than the entire cast, it no longer remains as an ambitious project, it becomes a parody. If that was the point, then bravo, but I doubt it was. See this film if you want to laugh, but don’t see it for any other reason.

I think I'm going to have to watch this again as I'm sure it deserves more than a 7/10, but I just didn't hear enough of it to make complete sense of everything that was going on (hearing problems).

I really liked the noir-mystery style of the film, and the acting was good from everyone. I was surprised to see a couple of more well-known faces in the cast (Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Emilie de Ravin) but I think they did a good job of their respective roles and I'm glad that it was kept to a more indie feel with a less famoous cast. The camera shots and amplified sounds were also quite nice features, and definitely an improvement on attempts in other indie film (*points at Elephant*).

I'll be watching this again when I get the chance.

Take a classic 1940s film noir murder mystery and throw it into modern times, make it revolve around drugs and high school kids, add some awesome handheld camera cinematography, and you have 'Brick'. I thought the acting was completely stellar from everyone involved, although the teens seemed a lot more mature and intelligent than real teens found in today's high schools. I think it would've been a 10/10 film if it was set on college grounds instead of high school environment. That's only part that felt a bit unrealistic.

This film needs multiple viewing, almost like Memento or 21 Grams. The dialogue is overwhelming, lots of clues are around, and there's a lot of characters and motives flying around that it could be too much to fully absorb in one viewing. I watched it late at night, and had to shut it off half way, and re-watch at earlier time next day, as I felt I was missing too much of the plot (and I did miss a lot from the first night).

Overall, a solid 8/10, but I'll see how I feel after one or two more viewings (movie is such a thinking movie that it makes me want to see it again). But it will always be kept away from the 10/10 rating in my books because of the 'high school' aspect of it.

I also loved the subtle humor in some spots, such as the mother of the drug king pin giving everyone fresh juice while all his gang members are waiting at his house. It's funny coz it's true. Most drug dealers I knew acted like thugs but still lived in their mother's basement. :)

I've read about this movie for quite some time, but never got around to watching it. Joseph-Gordon Levitt plays Brenden, a high-school student who attempts to solve the killing of his ex-girlfriend. You quickly notice that this is no ordinary teen murder mystery, it plays homage to the old "noir" films that were so prevalant in the 40's and 50's. The film style, plot twists, and somewhat over-the-top characters (see Lukas Haas Pin character for example) are done very well, however if you didn't know anything about the movie going into it, you'd probably think it was a little too hard to comprehend. The dialogue is hard to follow at times, but again this is a throwback film in some sorts, so it may require multiple viewings to truly grasp the meaning of many scenes.

I particularily liked how the movie used this type of film style in a setting like a high school in suburbia, where you might not think would work so well. It was pulled off as well as it could be, but again the characters were just too unbelievable in many aspects. What makes me appreciate the film though is how many great actors and great directors there are as shown in this movie that are not afraid to produce a film that clearly goes against the grain.