“Brick” Directed by Rian Johnson Focus
Features
Movies about high school are an American tradition. But while
the current crop of college students has grown up with the likes of
“Can’t Hardly Wait,” the genre seems to be in
danger of becoming more irrelevant than last week’s MySpace
comments.
Writer and director Rian Johnson dodges this problem by marrying
high school to another American tradition: film noir. His first
feature attempts to transpose the look, sound and feel of
hard-boiled detective stories to a contemporary Southern California
high school setting ““ and mostly succeeds in doing so. The
film follows Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), an introverted yet
highly observant outsider who is left with nothing but questions
after the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend (Emilie de Ravin).
Brendan and his sleuth sidekick The Brain (Matt O’Leary)
peruse the underworld of the high school for answers, coming in
contact with a shady assortment of thugs, villains and, of course,
femme fatales. As he gets closer to the heart of the mystery,
Brendan finds himself aligned with everyone from low-IQ head-basher
Tug (Noah Fleiss) to eccentric drug lord The Pin (Lukas Haas).
Predictably, none of these relationships make Brendan’s life
safer.
The storytelling of “Brick” is effective and
engrossing, primarily because of Johnson’s well-defined
characters and the performances of his adept young cast.
Gordon-Levitt’s turn as Brendan is strong enough to not be
overshadowed by other memorable showings, most notably by Haas as
The Pin. That’s saying something when it comes to such
standout scenes as the audience’s introduction to The
Pin’s preferred mode of transportation: He receives Brendan
in the back of a van furnished with a velvet couch and an antique
lamp. The scene is also a prime example of Johnson’s tendency
to undercut the darkness of his tale with humor, which helps him
put forth a fuller, more enjoyable product.
But “Brick” is nothing if not dark. The film’s
murky look recalls classic noir and fits perfectly with the
script’s portrayal of the seedy underbelly of secondary
education. Foremost in both capturing a throwback feel and
distinguishing “Brick” from the rest of the high school
genre, however, is Johnson’s dialogue. The characters speak
in a mixture of 1940s detective jargon, 1990s slang and hip-hop
terms, which results in a language that is sometimes difficult to
translate but always feels unique (sample phrase: “Ask the
reef worn where his gat sprang from”).
“Brick” wears its influences proudly and openly,
though the film sometimes sags under its considerable stylistic
weight, like when the dialogue enters the realm of the ridiculous
or when Brendan’s detective work seems a bit too convenient.
But a few minor missteps are a small price to pay for an ambitious
and original approach to a familiar genre (or genres, as the case
may be). In visiting an old setting through even older conventions
of style, “Brick” actually becomes something relatively
new: a movie that makes high school interesting again.
““ Nick Rudman