Brick takes the noir conventions and places it in a modern suburban high school setting. Veronica Mars fans are already familiar with this setup, although taken as a whole, the film is considerably more serious than VM. Instead of a hard boiled detective, we get a loner high school student named Brendan (played by the increasingly impressive Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Despite being just a teenager, Brendan is just as hard-boiled as any version of Philip Marlowe. After his girlfriend is mysteriously killed he does what any good noir hero would do–he sets out to solve the case.
As is true of many classic noir films, the plot in “Brick” is secondary to the imaginative characters and explosive dialogue. (Perhaps my real love of noir stems from my secret desire to speak like a noir character.) Surprisingly, practically all of the actors do an extraordinary job at making the poetically gritty dialogue seem realistic. This was my biggest fear going into the film, because noir dialogue done wrong is just painful. First-time writer/director Rian Johnson has also done a remarkable job at transplanting traditional noir character archetypes into the high-school world.
Of notable mention is the film’s score, which heralds back to works of Ennio Morricone for Sergio Leone’s spaghetti Westerns. The film’s hauntingly unique score ends up being a mix of both traditional noir and Leone Westerns, and it’s used to great effect.
I’d rather not spend much more time reviewing the film, you can read about it anywhere else. Let me just say that it’s the best film I’ve seen to date this year, and I can’t remember when last a film has stuck with me this much. If this film is indicative of Rian Johnson’s future career path, he will certianly be someone to look out for.
“Brick” is currently playing in limited release, and will be available on DVD in August.