Brick is a modern day noir with a plot so labyrinthine that it might very well give Raymond Chandler’s pulp fictions a run for money. And since we are not accustomed to have young people without any creases on their faces as noir protagonists or private dicks, the director’s decision to base the story in a high school setting, peopled almost completely with teenagers, reeks with audacity. However, or perhaps because of the high school setting, the film didn’t have the kind of pulpy feel to it that the plot desperately needed to have, nor did the characters appear aligned to the film’s theme – they seemed too shallow and too young to be believable. The plot concerns a young loner, who, while investigating his ex-girlfriend’s death, infiltrates a local drug cartel and exposes those responsible for her gruesome murder. The film is dark, comprises of a well-paced narrative, and boasts of two fine performances by the actors in the respective roles of the laconic protagonist and the mysterious femme fatale. Unfortunately, because of the reasons mentioned above, and the overtly complicated plot, the movie never managed to engage my senses as much as I would have liked.
Director: Rian Johnson
Genre: Crime Thriller/Post-Noir/Mystery
Language: English
Country: US
