Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with our own MiraJeff and his thoughts on BRICK. He seems a bit troubled by the movie, but seems to like it overall. I loved the film (no, that's not my quote in the trailer... I think that came from one of our Sundance spies who wrote in on the movie) myself and never had any trouble keeping up with it... and I'm a dolt, but I guess I just fell into the groove of the film quicker than MiraJeff did. Also, that mention at the end about seeing boom mics above the actor's heads is most certainly a projection error and a pretty common one at that with projectionists that don't know which aperture plate to use. Anyway, here's MiraJeff with his thoughts. Enjoy!
Greetings AICN, MiraJeff here with a look at Brick, a film that I’m pretty sure the Powers That Be here have seen, if its trailers aren’t lying. ‘A detective story of the most elaborate kind,’ proclaims AICN. Now I’m not sure whether that quote can be attributed to Harry or Mori, but whoever said it was certainly right. Brick is ‘most elaborate,’ but whether its story was best served by being such is up for debate. The truth is, Brick was one of my most anticipated films of the year, let alone the spring, and while it was definitely good, and especially creative, I have to say I was a bit disappointed overall. Now let me explain why…
…Right after I give you the gist of the story. Brick is good old-fashioned film noir, only its set in high school. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Brendan, a teenage Sam Spade who is investigating the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend Emily (Lost’s Emilie de Ravin). This thrusts him into the high school underworld where he interacts with a bunch of quirky, shady characters like Tug, The Brain, and The Pin, who is played by Lukas Haas, doing his best work in years. Likewise, Gordon-Levitt’s performance is nearly on par with the tour-de-force he delivered last year in Mysterious Skin. Of course, any young actor who isn’t humping a pie or running from a crazed maniac deserves praise. But for a guy who joined the cast only three months before production started, he sufficiently makes the role of Brendan his own. Gordon-Levitt makes a convincing teen sleuth, with his shaggy hair hanging in front of his wire-rim glasses, and seems to have a definite feel for the rhythm of his character; how he moves, how he talks, and how he feels. On the flip side, Tug, a muscular, muscle-car driving kid who acts as the muscle for The Pin, is rarely allowed to emote or communicate anything to the audience beyond seething anger. But Tug’s one dimensionality is the least of the film’s problems.
The biggest two are Johnson’s editing decisions, and his screenplay, which is cloaked in so much psycho-babble jargon, at times it is completely impenetrable. I consider myself a pretty competent moviegoer, but some pieces of information just went right over my head. Even in spite of a trite epilogue in which our main character puts all the pieces of the puzzle together, it still takes an intelligent viewer to figure out what the hell happened at the end. As for the dialogue, it’s almost too smart for its own good, because half the time you can’t understand what anyone is saying because everyone talks in this pseudo-film noir language that Johnson later said was influenced by the writings of Dashiell Hammett. In a Q + A after the film, which screened at NYU as part of its directors series, Johnson also said that he fully intended to portray high school life as totally unrealistic. He definitely got that right, considering parents are nearly absent throughout the movie.
As for the editing, some of Johnson’s choices were more than a bit puzzling. Like Memento before it, Brick is one of those movies that begins at the end. However, unlike that superior film, this poses a problem, as first-time writer/director Rian Johnson shoots himself in the foot by giving away a bit too much right off the bat. I think the pay off would have been lot stronger if Brick had retained some mystery as to what happened to Emily, but we’re aware of her fate before we can even begin to care about it.
There must’ve been two minutes of screen time wasted on total darkness by fading in and out between almost every scene. Also, and this didn’t make any sense to me, but the boom mike is clearly visible above the actors’ heads at least a dozen times. Someone asked Johnson about this afterwards and he said it was the projectionist’s fault, but his response sounded so sarcastic, I wasn’t sure if he was kidding or not. I mean, Brick is a low-budget film (500K), and maybe Johnson didn’t notice the boom shots until it was too late to re-shoot, but either way, an honest answer would’ve been appreciated. Or maybe it was the projectionist’s fault, I don’t know. There were also several instances in which the audience I saw the film with laughed at things that weren’t funny, and I don’t think were intended to be, for instance Brendan’s propensity for taking ass-kicking after ass-kicking and always coming back for more.
If this review sounds negative, I apologize, because I would recommend Brick to my friends without any hesitation whatsoever. It’s an interesting film, albeit a cold, confusing one, that deserves to be seen. It’s not quite a can’t-miss mystery, but it’s definitely worth a look thanks to some solid performances and Johnson’s unique visual style. He’s a filmmaker with an original voice and certainly one to watch. I’m eager to see what his follow-up to Brick will be. That’ll do it for me folks. I’m off to enjoy Spring Break in Miami. Since I’ll be out of town, I’d like to part by wishing everyone a Happy St. Patty’s Day. This is MiraJeff signing off and refusing to join the AICN chorus for now, though that will change soon once I post my review of The Devil and Daniel Johnston, which was simply brilliant. Erin Go Braugh and all that jazz.
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