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Film: Brick [R] 117 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $11.75
When 1st Seen: 11 April 2006
Where Viewed: AMC Pacific Place 11, Seattle, WA
Review Dedicated to: Alexander J. B. of Chicago, IL
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DVD | soundtrack |
Ever find yourself reading about a movie in a review or studio release but you were too embarrassed to admit you didn’t know a term they used to describe it? We forget sometimes that some readers or moviegoers, for that matter, are more youthful than others. Think about it, there are a whole ton of new 17 year olds for whom this film could be their very first legal [R-rated] film. True. So, for them and those who are not film review/genre buffs allow me to refresh on a term that I first encountered back when I was 21 years old and read reviews of and saw the film Blue Velvet.
Film Noir: A movie characterized by low-key lighting, a bleak urban setting, and corrupt, cynical characters. source: Dictionary.com
The thing about the term “film noir” (literally ‘black film’ in French) is that it was retrospective and applied by film historians after the fact to categorize films fitting this description made mostly from the late 1940s through mid-1950s. Currently, 1950s’ Sunset Blvd. holds the rank as best film noir in the Internet Movie Data Base. In any case, I haven’t seen the term used much until yesterday when it popped into my eye off a promotional board outside the theater on my way in to see Brick, Winner of the Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision at Sundance 2005. I thought it a curious claim. Now that I have seen the film, I can agree the core definition fits it to a tee. From the outset, I would posit that Brick, probably like most film noir-genre films, will tend to forge legions of followers, foes, and fakers. There are people who just don’t want to shell out $9 bucks to see a movie, “…characterized by low-key lighting, a bleak urban setting, and corrupt, cynical characters,” no matter how cool, ‘artful’, clever, creative, inventive, and fresh it might be. Meanwhile, there are people who will shell out $45 to see this movie five times in the first two weeks of release so they can talk non-stop about how cool it was, and how many times they’ve seen it, and how they figured this out and that out. Then, interestingly, there will be a third category of followers called the fakers. They won’t shell out the $45 or spend hours in chat rooms or reading and writing posts on message boards. No, this third group will just pretend they know what it’s all about, because they won’t want to admit that they just didn’t get it. And, if you read your reviews carefully, you will find all three of these same types of critics—hopefully fewer fakers, but still a few. It seems to me that films like this are the most polarizing among critics and fans and, therefore, lead to the most lively debates. Personally, I find that part electrifying. It is fun to try and figure out (a) who I know and which critics will fall into which category: fan, foe, faker, and (b) to figure out how soon into the film will a person’s mind be made up as to which category they fall into. Good and bad news at the same time. I think the setting point will fall at approximately 11 minutes into the film. Yes, either you are going to be hooked by the events or not at that point. If you are not, you will probably become a foe either way and your mind is not likely to find itself caring to figure out the complex urban-speak used by the teenage characters nor to connect the trail of bread crumbs left by the plot to the final revelation of what is deemed in the film’s poster “a detective movie by Rian Johnson”. So, regardless, let’s start you off then with this…
Brendan “thick as what all” [text from the movie poster]
We start with Brendan Frye (Joseph “Third Rock from the Son” Gordon-Levitt—25 y.o.) a loner kid who eats his lunch literally and figuratively behind the temporary classrooms of some ocean side, unidentified town, maze-like, southern California high school. He gets a cryptic message scrawled on a scrap of paper to be at a certain location at a certain time, and so he figures, he better follow it. Turns out to be the location of a phone booth where he receives a call from an ex-girlfriend, Emily (Emilie “fresh off shooting The Hills Have Eyes or maybe the other way around” de Ravin—24 y.o.), about her being in some kind of trouble, and that’s how it all begins. A loner, of course has no friends except…
The Brain “the foil with the inside track” [text from the movie poster]
The Brain (Matt “Young Fenton in Frailty” O'Leary—19 y.o.) is a Rubik’s Cube®-solving master genius enlisted by Brendan to help him find Emily. If he cannot find someone, he, at least knows where to look and how to decode the lingo. Which ultimately leads Brendan to a major stoner named Dode (Noah Segan—23 y.o.) and then an encounter with the high school seductress, Kara (Meagan “Naomi Phillips from Roll Bounce” Good—24 y.o.) and a red postcard with the phone number of…
Laura “hard luck in a red kimono” [text from the movie poster]
Laura (Nora “Everwood” Zehetner—25 y.o.) Dannon hosts an exclusive party at her home where Brendan meets her and Brad (Brian “Patrick Thomas from The Family Stone” White—32 y.o.) the school’s loud-mouthed, thinks-he’s-God’s-gift-to-the-universe jock. This meeting will lead Brendan to a brutal parking lot encounter with…
Tug “he shined a gat as he blew the burg” [text from the movie poster]
Tug (Noah “Evergreen” Fleiss—22 y.o.) who turns out to be the enforcer for a mysterious and formerly thought to be an urban legend drug lord known only as…
The Pin “all the jake sprang from him” [text from the movie poster]
The Pin (Lukas “the little kid in Witness with Harrison Ford” Haas—30 y.o.) who turns out to be only too real.
Poor Brendan. I guess he had it pretty bad for Emily. But, Emily had it pretty bad for a less loner-based lifestyle and wanted to get with a more popular crowd. The crowd, unfortunately, was way too fast for her, a fact that hits her like a brick and that’s the trick. For the brick, it turns out, is part of a dozen, and each with a certain value on the street. The question is will Brendan be able to figure it all out before the Assistant Vice Principal, Gary Trueman (Richard Roundtree—64 y.o.), throws him to the cops.
So how much do you know? You know a lot. You know that the film is about a guy on the trail to find a missing girl. You know that the characters are inter-related like a jigsaw puzzle and they speak in their own urban jargon of which you have read samples [in quotations after each name]. You know why the film is called Brick. You also know that, with the exception of Richard Roundtree—though even he would have probably been given early retirement to save a school district a lot of dough—none of the main characters is portrayed by a person of actual high school age which you may or may not know to be one of my major pet peeves! You also know enough probably, right now, to say if you are going to be a fan, foe, or faker. Foes, may as well stop reading now. Fakers, you know you need to read the whole thing. Fans, will be posting messages about how I got this wrong and that wasn’t what it was supposed to say moments after I post, so I know you’ll still be reading.
So, for my review to progress, I guess, I have to fall in and admit I am a qualified fan. Basically, I was hooked from the opening tinkling of the mod-xylophone-sounding instrumentals. I thought Joseph Gordon-Levitt was a perfect dark shadow hero. Each of the other characters stands
as a yin yang with both sinister and sensitive pieces battling for control. Sure, it was a lot easier for the adult actors to give these performances than it would have been for real kids to do the same, so that was a bit unfair. Nonetheless, they do an outstanding job. The plot, the clues, the culture, the look into this world and the resulting wonder of how America is supposed to survive the next century if this is what kids are really doing today in high school, are all fascinating. It is frustrating, at times, to have to decipher the lingo and glean what is up from resulting action, yet this is partially what makes it so cool. The film is dark, there is no happy ending—there is revenge of sorts, but it is not a happy thing—there is no cheerful or uplifting message to take home and post of the refrigerator for inspiration. Hey this is film noir! So with that, I say, yes, I liked Brick. I think it will be long remembered, copied even, added to the list of films noir, maybe spawn a new decade of films where the characters live in an existentially inverted time as scholars again debate the continuing reliance upon manifest destiny as justification for governments run amok.
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Brick [DVD](2005) DVD
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