"Brick," a flashy cinematic stunt perpetrated by Rian Johnson, dispenses with the adolescent gibberish of the here & now to graft the hard-boiled argot of Dashiell Hammett onto an upscale Southern Los angeles high school: the milieu of "Beverly Hills 90210" & "The O.C." goes noir.
A contemporary high school drama in which every other word is not "dude" or "awesome": what kind of movie is that?
If nothing else, the concept of a high school film noir is a shrewd attention-getting move for a first-time filmmaker like Mr. Johnson. "Brick" was duly awarded the Sundance Film Festival's Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision in 2005. Its raw ambition certainly puts it near the head of its class in contemporary teenage dramas. But what does that mean in a genre dominated by C students & worse? The word "class" is a misnomer, since there is not a classroom in sight in "Brick." The main action takes place outside in the high school parking lot.
In a twisty plot that proudly borrows elements from "The Maltese Falcon," "Red Harvest" & other Hammett yarns, Brendan Frye (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a teenage Bogart-as-Sam Spade minus the trench coat & fedora, digs in to a roiling adolescent underworld of murder & drug dealing. It is all so seamy, sordid, lurid & shocking! & dull, despite a noirish gloss of wide-angle cinematography as well as a jaundiced, smoggy color technique.
The underachieving cast of "Brick" merely goes through the motions. The women are pale. Is not a deep whiskey-and-cigarette-ravaged voice a prerequisite for playing a noir siren? Or has the Hilary-Britney-Mary-Kate-and-Ashley chirp stamped out precociously womanly voices like the 19-year-old Lauren Bacall's in "To Have & Have Not"?
"Brick" is even less dramatically convincing than Alan Parker's 1976 gangster spoof, "Bugsy Malone," which cast kids as hoods & featured the 13-year-old Jodie Foster vamping it up like Rita Hayworth in "Gilda." ("Brick" has nothing half as spicy.) Even a guilty pleasure like "Cruel Intentions," which took "Dangerous Liaisons" to high school, landed some uncomfortable emotional punches because it was acted than pantomimed.
The story, briefly: Brendan, a lean, squinty-eyed loner, senses that there is something rotten in his high school when his insecure, social-climbing ex-girlfriend, Emily (Emilie de Ravin), vanishes after ringing him in a state of panic. Brendan, who still cares for Emily, becomes obsessed with finding her & enlists his über-nerd pal, the Brain (Matt O'Leary), as fellow gumshoe. Brendan has an ambiguous relationship with the high school's stern assistant vice principal (Richard Roundtree), the movie's surrogate police chief, with whom they verbally spars in a number of the film's most embarrassingly wooden conversations.
Perhaps "Brick" is a comedy. There is something cute, if not outright ludicrous, in the spectacle of dewy young actors striking the poses of hard-boiled demimondaines & desperadoes & failing utterly to make them come alive. The movie seems to have its tongue stuck in its cheek during a final showdown in a suburban basement, during which the impervious father of a teenage drug lord is upstairs baking cookies. But funny it is not.
Mr. Haas & Mr. Gordon-Levitt at least succeed in evoking the outlines of their characters. But the film's ham-handed reliance on period argot not only wears thin; it keeps the characters, such as they are, at a chilly distance.
They soon discovers Emily's dead body at the way in to a tunnel. As they meticulously retraces her steps, they meet high-school versions of the usual noir suspects: a predatory drama queen (Meagan Lovely), a stoner who requires some roughing up (Noah Segan), a slinky femme fatale (Nora Zehetner), a beefy thug (Noah Fleiss) &, finally, the drug lord himself, the Pin (Lukas Haas). Mr. Haas, who twirls a falcon-crested cane & walks with an elegant limp, suggests a wiry, smirking Sydney Greenstreet.
"Brick" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It's strong language & some violence.
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