Brick (D or 1/4 stars)
I wish someone would have thrown a brick at me to wake me up during 'Brick', a noir drama/mystery written & directed by Rian Johnson. The setting is San Clemete High School in barren SoCal. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (of 3rd Rock from the Sun) plays Brendan, a young tough guy who delves deep into an underground high school drug war en route to figuring out who killed his recent girlfriend, Emily (Emilie De Ravin of Lost). I respect originality in filmmaking. But this movie tries way too hard to be noir/indie/artsy/different. And the all-too-clever, quick-paced dialogue involving teenage drug lingo is practically impossible to decipher. Aside from the brief synopsis I provide above, there is not much more about this film that I 'got'; it is extremely challenging to follow.
Our high school gumshoe, Brendan, enlists the help of his pal, The Brain (Matt O'Leary) to figure out who the bad guys are, who's the pretty rich girl who is following them around campus, why their vice principal (Richard Roundtree) is hounding them, & why a 'brick' is at the center of Emily's mysterious disappearance/death. Why would anyone want to kill his Emily? Who will live and die by default? How is she tied in to this crime/drug ring? Part of the reason may be that Emily had recently begun sleeping with Tug (played well by Noah Fleiss), the fist man for 'The Pin' (the cape-wearing 17 yr. old leader of the drug ring). Yes, you just read that correctly.
There's not much more to say. The movie is as vacant as its setting (there are no extra cars, trees, people, props). I suppose I really place blame on the director because he writes such a convoluted, frustrating screenplay. Nearly every word uttered by our characters is spoken quickly & meaning something entirely else. We're supposed to catch-up and get all of that? And the fact that this is a high school mystery ... who is his audience? Is he making this film for himself? Teenagers? The indie folk who got to movies such as this to pry something out of artistic pretention? Who?
The cinematography is bland. There's no mood-creating music. Gordon-Levitt is believable as our down trodden, sarcastic, angsty protagonist. De Ravin is believable enough as the 'lost' teenager (pun intended). Again, it's the direction/script lets them down, big time. In fact, there's a moment at the 1 hour 32 minute mark where it is obvious that Johnson failed at directing some of these actors to emote effectively. Said scene makes these kids look like they're playing grown-up, rather than acting; a nightmare. The movie does not allow for them to go beyond anything one-dimensional because all of the saturated 'slang' dialogue muddles everything up. Aside from a slightly nerve-wracking fight scene at the end, the mystery surrounding the plot falls short. Grr, when will 2006's great movie surface?
Our high school gumshoe, Brendan, enlists the help of his pal, The Brain (Matt O'Leary) to figure out who the bad guys are, who's the pretty rich girl who is following them around campus, why their vice principal (Richard Roundtree) is hounding them, & why a 'brick' is at the center of Emily's mysterious disappearance/death. Why would anyone want to kill his Emily? Who will live and die by default? How is she tied in to this crime/drug ring? Part of the reason may be that Emily had recently begun sleeping with Tug (played well by Noah Fleiss), the fist man for 'The Pin' (the cape-wearing 17 yr. old leader of the drug ring). Yes, you just read that correctly.
There's not much more to say. The movie is as vacant as its setting (there are no extra cars, trees, people, props). I suppose I really place blame on the director because he writes such a convoluted, frustrating screenplay. Nearly every word uttered by our characters is spoken quickly & meaning something entirely else. We're supposed to catch-up and get all of that? And the fact that this is a high school mystery ... who is his audience? Is he making this film for himself? Teenagers? The indie folk who got to movies such as this to pry something out of artistic pretention? Who?
The cinematography is bland. There's no mood-creating music. Gordon-Levitt is believable as our down trodden, sarcastic, angsty protagonist. De Ravin is believable enough as the 'lost' teenager (pun intended). Again, it's the direction/script lets them down, big time. In fact, there's a moment at the 1 hour 32 minute mark where it is obvious that Johnson failed at directing some of these actors to emote effectively. Said scene makes these kids look like they're playing grown-up, rather than acting; a nightmare. The movie does not allow for them to go beyond anything one-dimensional because all of the saturated 'slang' dialogue muddles everything up. Aside from a slightly nerve-wracking fight scene at the end, the mystery surrounding the plot falls short. Grr, when will 2006's great movie surface?