Brick - Dose mortale

OK...I have never actually commented on a movie on IMDb, but this movie was so great I really felt I had to let people know about it. When I first read the synopsis of Brick at Sundance I was immediately interested in seeing it. "Film Noir set in a high school." I started hearing really terrible reviews of it and almost did not go until the very last day I could. I am so glad I did. It is a very unique film, such a refreshing one for people who have seen it all. So if you want something new and different you will definitely enjoy this. Others may find it is too over-the top for them--it took me several minutes to understand what the characters were even saying at first, in their language that mixed old film noir slang with the new generation of slang. Its very dark and the sound design will even make a person feel uneasy. The director linked sound and image in ways I have never seen, completely enthralling me from beginning to end. This movie is not a relaxing ride. oh! but there are great comedic and ironic moments as well! I think a lot of the criticism I heard of this film was that it was too incomprehensible and unbelievable. I personally really got into the world of this film and it had me on the edge of my seat until the very end. It was so enjoyable to buy into the rules of the film noir/high school drama world and its characters. I did not even recognize the lead character as that kid from 3rd Rock until the end! I hated 3rd Rock, but I absolutely loved and believed in his character here. I loved it! One of my top picks at Sundance this year. sorry I have never written a review...I hope this reveals something about the movie. I really, really hope that it gets released soon! It is one of those interesting movies that could really be a cult classic.

Saw this at the Mill Valley Film Festival. It's essentially a film noir set in present-day San Clemente High School, reminiscent of "The Big Sleep," but with drug-dealing added to the mix of double-crossing. The characters may be teenagers, but the dialog channels Chandler and Hammett, and my only real complaint with the film is that Joseph Gordon-Leavitt (in an otherwise wonderful performance) sometimes mumbles; this is dialog you don't want to miss. Lukas Haas is wonderfully eccentric in what is essentially the Sidney Greenstreet role, Noah Fleiss as the dumb thug, and Nora Zehetner even LOOKs like Mary Astor. As with all the great American noir films, there are many sardonic laughs inserted into the dark story.

This is an EXCELLENT and delightfully surprising movie. Its style is refreshing, its dialoque fascinating, the performances powerful, and the story is both energetic and fun. I just caught this movie at the sundance film festival and can't help hoping that A LOT more people get to see it. The amazing attention to detail by Rian Johnson (the writer/director) and the incredible performances by Haas, Zehetner, and especially Joseph Gordon-Levitt marks this very commendable film. I remember sitting in the theater before the film started, completely disappointed by the last two films I had seen the night before. I truly wasn't expecting to be wowed or even awake, but from the very first scene I had to keep "my specs peeled". We just don't get to experience the feel of this movie anymore. I highly recommend it once it's out.

While a touch (maybe 5-10 minutes) overlong, its clever dialogue requires absolute attention and shows how well versed in the language of noir the screenwriter is. (Terms like "yegs" and "sap" are rarely used these days but offer a direct and crtitical link to Hammett and Chandler).

It's also quite humorous, mixing David Lynch, "River's Edge", "Heathers", and any high-noir reference you care to make quite freely. And Lukas Haas' turn as an oddball kingpin is reminiscent of William Hurt's spin on the same in "A History of Violence" in that they are both highly stylized.

However, because the dialogue is so utterly complicated, discerning all the plot elements and making eventual sense of the film would probably have to be done over a period of time. The film lends itself to multiple viewings, and some people might not like that.

A life in film — if you really commit yourself to it — can leave you desperately depressed about the future. The templates are so mature that they are inescapable: without a template somewhere in the field of the thing you simply cannot "read" it, register it.

So you have only a few choices if you are a young filmmaker entering this world. You can buy into the system and play the game as the rivers flow. You can become a stylist in some way.

Or you can play with the templates and forms, usually in a self-referential way. When I see this last as the choice a young filmmaker makes, I rejoice. And it is sheer pleasure when it is done well.

This is. And its existence will make you optimistic, probably just knowing it is there.

Here's what it is: a hardboiled detective story transplanted not into high school (as it appears) but into the abstractions of high school that movies have invented. These two genres each have their own set of abstractions that flatten the world. This fellow has overlapped them. He's suppressed all irony — what is usually called irony but is actually selfawareness.

For this to work, all the characters have to be locked in their own world(s) and never glimpse anything outside the flatland. Its expertly done here, just gloriously. The editing is banal (which is a real problem) but the blocking is every bit as inspired as the placement of the thing in terms of the ordinary world of movies.

One example: our hero has been stereotypically beaten and is in a car trunk on his way to meet the local drug kingpin, who is another teen operating out of his Mom's basement. There's a game of light and darkness in this sequence: being blacked out with fists, darkness in the trunk and surreptitiously peering out. Once we are in the house down the cellar stairs there is a short hallway between the bottom of the stairs and a small basement room, the hub. This room is cheap fake wood panelling and low ceiling. Cheap lamps. But before we get there, we get a flash of light when the door opens and we see the 10 foot hallway is jammed with teen drug soldiers lined against the two walls. Its brilliant.

Kids. They own everything. They control not the future but the way we shape what we have now. When I see stuff like this, I think we might be lucky because if it.

2005 was a bad year for movies. This should be on your short list of best of 2005.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.