BRICK
**** out of *****
Reviewed by Shahir Daud

Screening in the 2006 New Zealand International Film Festival
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Genres
Mystery

2005
Written and directed by
Rian Johnson
Cast
Joseph Gordon-Levitt .... Brendan
Nora Zehetner .... Laura
Lukas Haas .... The Pin
Noah Fleiss .... Tugger
Matt O'Leary .... The Brain
Emilie de Ravin .... Emily
Noah Segan .... Dode
Richard Roundtree .... Assistant V.P. Trueman
Meagan Good .... Kara
Brian J. White .... Brad Bramish

Undoubtedly cool and incomprehensibly complex, Brick treads the murky kidult waters of Southern California and gives it a sincere noir makeover. This isn’t homage as much as it is simulacrum, transposing the gritty world of Raymond Chandler and Phillip Marlowe into the Asphalt Jungle that is high school.

The danger with this kind of outward genre-love is relying on too many in-jokes, alienating even the most cine-literate of audiences. To be fair, Brick is an elaborate in-joke, but one where the punch line has enough weight to transcend its intended audience.

Like all ‘the dame strolled into my office’ stories, the hardman detective filled with well-earned angst finds his small investigation turn into a study of corruption of the highest order. Brendan (a young but weather worn Joseph Gordon Levitt) receives a hysterical phone call from former girlfriend and damsel in distress Emily (Lost’s Emile de Ravin). She rambles about a ‘brick’ and ‘the pin’ and ‘tug’ before summarily hanging up with a shrieking scream. Navigating through the social networks of American high school, Brendan uncovers an elaborate stratum of low-lifes, drug dealers, schoolgirl femme fatales and the absentee parents that overlook them all.

While Brick’s conclusion may come dangerously close to be indecipherable, the journey there is so inventive and fresh that its worth taking a blind leap of faith in the hands of first time writer/director Rian Johnson. Johnson’s image making skills and  command of lexicon are excellent, but his enthusiasm for twisting and turning the corkscrew of a plot could leave you lost without a roadmap back.

But then, the best noir films were almost always indecipherable without a second viewing, and if anything, Brick successfully uses the structure without ever resorting to parody (there are occasional moments of self-aware humour, but these are welcome breaks in tension). What Brick captures is the effortless cool and existential angst that film noir oozed. It’s one thing to make a period noir film (as L.A. Confidential successfully did), but its quite another to recreate the genre entirely. If Brick isn’t as successful as it should have been, it’s so close you can forgive its flaws.

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Shahir Daud’s reviews also appear on www.varsity.co.nz

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