Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...

Rian Johnson’s debut feature is a remarkable bit of conceptual brilliance that pays off in something of substance, not just a style exercise. If you haven’t seen the very groovy trailer, I recommend you check it out. Focus is doing a good job of selling the film. What that trailer promises you is what you’ll get, and then some. In a way, this reminds me of Paul Brickman’s landmark RISKY BUSINESS. There’s something of that movie’s cool at work here in Johnson’s all-American detective story played out against the backdrop of the savage jungle of high school. It’s not a joke... it’s not played for the knowing laughs of season one VERONICA MARS, for example... but is instead something that seems very natural. Joseph Gordon-Levitt isn’t playing some self-appointed Philip Marlowe wanna-be, and the word “detective” is never used. He’s simply someone who finds himself wrapped up in a mystery that threatens to destroy him if he doesn’t solve it.

Gordon-Levitt’s been around for a while, and even on THIRD ROCK FROM THE SUN, it was obvious that he had great natural timing and that he could hold his own opposite even the most insane of John Lithgow’s digressions. He struck me as the same kind of natural performer as Michael J. Fox when he was on FAMILY TIES. I met Gordon-Levitt at Sundance in 2001, when he was in town to support MANIC, a pretty solid teen drama that’s all over pay cable this month, and he struck me as a really serious actor, a guy who wanted to polish his craft. After the one-two punch of last year’s haunting MYSTERIOUS SKIN and his work in this film, Gordon-Levitt’s leapt forward as one of the most interesting guys his age. Even at his most shut down and hunched over and crushed in this movie, there’s still something about him that seems exposed, vulnerable, and you can’t help but empathize with him. He plays Brendan Frye as this bruised bulldog of a kid, determined to do right by the memory of his girlfriend Emily (played by LOST’s Emilie de Ravin), whose death is the film’s stark opening image. The deeper he digs, the worse things seem to get for him, but he’s unflappable, and Gordon-Levitt makes us believe that he’s going to figure it all out.

It’s not easy to take a style exercise and invigorate it with a genuine sense of life, but Rian Johnson’s succeeded in the way that the Coens succeeded in their early work. If anything, this puts me in mind of MILLER’S CROSSING in the way it takes some of the signatures of Hammett and Chandler but manages to make it feel original and organic. High school students have a language all their own and a social pecking order that is carefully defined and almost completely separate from the world of their parents. I love the way we only glimpse parents once or twice in the film, and they play a subservient role, just showing up long enough to serve refreshments before disappearing again. Because Brendan lives in this private world of teenagers, it makes sense that he and his friends all speak in this slang, this private language. Instead of coming across as an affectation, it makes us believe that these people all share the same social sphere. It makes it specific.

Brendan’s a great unflappable hero. No matter what happens, no matter how rough things get, he just picks himself up and refuses to back off. He’s not a muscular guy, like Noah Fleiss as Tugger, and he’s not an evil genius like the Pin, played by Lukas Haas. Brendan’s just determined, tenacious. He stays on the case long after anyone else would have walked away, even after he’s given plenty of reasons to walk away. After a while, I get the feeling he couldn’t give up even if he wanted to. He’s just coasting on the forward momentum he’s created, and if he stops moving for any reason, he might never get started again.

Steve Yedlin, Johnson’s cinematographer, is a vital piece of this particular puzzle, as his work here is so strong. He’s cut his teeth on good genre films like Tobe Hooper’s TOOLBOX MURDERS and Lucky McKee’s MAY, but BRICK is world-class work that should steer him to even bigger things in the future. This can’t have been an expensive movie, but there’s a sleek surface to the film that is Yedlin’s doing. He gives the film a smooth visual style to go along with the dense verbal wordplay.

Eventually, this turns into RED HARVEST (or YOJIMBO or FISTFUL OF DOLLARS or LAST MAN STANDING, depending on which version you’re most familiar with), as Brendan has to play everyone against the middle in an effort to escape this quicksand that he’s dug himself into. The way he pulls his plan together, the way he thinks on his feet, that’s what makes Brendan worth rooting for. It’s one of those story shapes that has been used over and over for a reason. When it works, it really works, and you get the feeling that the film is building towards something terrible.

So far, BRICK is probably my favorite new release of 2006, although I’ll admit... I’m behind this year. I’ve missed a lot of screenings, most of them because I just couldn’t work up the interest in what’s been screening. As we head into the summer, I’m dedicated to getting back to the business of actually seeing and reviewing things. I’ve done a lot of set visits and other side projects for AICN, all of which I’m busy transcribing and preparing for you now, but it’s nice to finally have some films coming out that are worth discussing again. I’ll have reviews of SLITHER and AWESOME! I FUCKIN’ SHOT THAT! coming up for you later this evening, and then next week, we’ve got the first of a series of special anniversary articles on the way for you. Until then...