New Kids on the Block

Since I lack great skill at writing reviews, I usually summarize a film. Brick isn't so easy to follow. A stylish debut by writer-director, Rian Johnson, it follows the tale of Brendan Frye, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who seems to have stayed very much in indie films (this is the third movie I seen from Levitt recently, including a small part in Latter Days, the lead in Mysterious Skin, and the lead in this film), whose discovered his ex-girlfriend is in trouble, and then ends up dead.

She asked for help, and he's willing to provide it. This ends up getting him involved with "The Pin", played by Lukas Haas (he was the little kid, in Witness so many years ago) who somehow runs a drug operation under the nose of his mom who has no clue, and can't decide whether to offer her guests milk or juice, the Tug, a brute of a guy played by Jamie Bell lookalike, Noah Fleiss, three women (Emily Kostach, the former girlfriend, Kara, who seems to do drama, and Laura Dannon, the femme fatale), and buddy, The Brain, who seems to know more about what's happening in the streets than general academics.

Indeed, it's not clear why the film is set at a high school since education and the issues of fitting in aren't entirely the subject of the film (though there is the goth, the jock, the troubled girl, the nerdy guy). Johnson has the character stereotypes you'd see in a high school drama, but puts them all in some more adult situation that you might see Bruce Willis in.

There's hard work to be done for the viewer sinc e you have to make head or tails of the lingo used. It alternates between stuff that's understandable, to stuff that seems like listening to Ride with the Devil, Ang Lee's film about the Civil War, which tries to reproduce dialog from that era, except I have a hard time believing this is based on how real people talk. Even so, it creates a hypnotic effect as you're transported to this world of violence.

I suspect the idea was very much like Bugsy Malone which came out in the 70s, directed by Alan Parker, with an all-teen cast playing the role f mobsters. Johnson's idea though, appears to be to put typical high school stereotypes into far more serious ground. It feels like he's referencing a bunch of movies (Kara looks like she's in Cabaret, and then also in some kabuki).

There's a physicality about the film. Levitt plays most of the film either beat up or beating people up, though mostly beat up.

Compelling from beginning to end, mostly in the single minded effort of Frye to vindicate what happened to ex-girlfriend, and for its labrynthine plot of cross and double-cross, you quickly forget that these are teens and that this should be too hard to believe as something real.

My complaint is that I didn't quite follow all of what was going on, but it was still enjoyable. All the actors give strong performances. The character that sticks out most for me is Laura Dannon played by Nora Zehetner, who seems like she'll play other roles pretty soon. (Turns out most of the characters are played be actors in their early 20s, but that's not so uncommon).

I give it a B+.