Max and the Junkmen Max and the Junkmen
Apr
11
2006

CANFIELD REVIEWS RIAN JOHNSON’S BRICK

Posted by Canfield at 8:41am.

Posted in Film & DVD Reviews , Cult, Drama, USA & Canada.

brick.jpg

An interview with Rian Johnson, director of Brick is a good thing. A faulty recording mechanism is not. Combine the two and add a pinch of “idiot who didn’t check his equipment prior to the interview” and you get a review of the film instead of the insights of a singular talent. I can report that Johnson is a nice guy, a gifted filmmaker and storyteller, I can even run a pic of me holding my signed copy of May (which he edited for long time pal Lucky McKee) but I cannot, alas, salvage the garbled mess sitting in my transcriber. In any event too many days have passed since the film’s opening for me to try any longer.

So instead I’ll just share my own insights into what is surely one of the most original films of the year. I first caught Brick at the 2005 Chicago International Film Festival. I had gone to the screening accidentally and only realized after the titles came up what I was seeing. Ah, providence.

Brick is a noir styled crime thriller set against the backdrop of a modern day high school where everyone talks as if they just stepped out of a screening of Out of the Past or the Big Sleep. But what makes Brick a true modern noir isn’t its dialogue. That in and of itself is merely interesting- a trick that’s all the more impressive for the ability to perform it so long. The dark magic lies in the stony hearts of it’s characters who beat against one another and the dark territory they are trapped in with the desperate force of condemned men. The characters of Brick are the stock of B movies tough guy survivors, femme fatale betrayers, wannabe kingpins, and childlike thugs but they aren’t clichés they are shadows of us all whether they wind up floating face down in a ditch or walking off into the uncertain sunset.

Brick opens with a shot of a blonde girl face down in a drainage ditch. It’s the sort of thing I’d expect from Sam Fuller especially given the concept of the film. But Brick takes place in a world all too real- apart from the world of classic noir. It’s as if all those old characters were suddenly transported into the world I lived in as a teen. Even if the roles assigned are straight from the B’s the emotions on display aren’t. Joseph Gordon Levitt plays Brendan Frye, a know-it-all loner mourning a failed relationship. When his former girlfriend disappears he becomes determined to find out the what, who, where when and how. Descending ever deeper into a teen underworld of drugs and thugs he soon finds himself caught between the school administration and the Pin- the ruthless head of the local drug scene.

Director Ryan Johnson ‘s main credit was as the editor for Lucky Mckee’s great horror film May. He’s either the luckiest guy on earth or a lot more of a creative player than you think he is after meeting him. How else could he get this incredible cast together? Emilie de Ravin, so far the only member of the LOST cast to make a decent flick, brings a perfect sense of woundedness to her role that makes us still believe her when the twist comes at the end of the film.

And I’ve got to mention Lukas Haas. Since his stunning debut in Witness Haas has, like other child actors, had to maneuver the dangerous territory of post child stardom career choices. Stay in acting or no? Celebrity or actor? Unlike Levitt, Haas has made some meh choices but he’s also made the absolute most of others including his turn as the drug lord Pin in Brick. In fact he almost steals the show.

At one point while negotiating with Gordon Levitt ‘s character Haas- who spends the entire film in a black cloak clubfoot and cane getup- finds himself doted over by a mom who just wants to be one of the gang. Nothing takes the menacing edge off your persona like mom serving milk and cookies to the guy you’re threatening. The scene would be nothing but hilarious if it didn’t underscore the film’s theme of kid’s lost in the shadows of suburbia. Later we see Pin watching the horizon on the beach. He’s the freest of the characters if freedom is defined by the amount of power someone holds. And yet here, looking out over a boundless sea Pin just seems like another lost soul who’s actions are almost predetermined by the waves everyone else is making. Haas is a talent to keep your eye on.

Levitt is more of a cipher. His understated delivery leaves him open to charges of simply playing himself. But even if there’s some truth there it must be balanced against the young actor’s uncanny ability to pick scripts worthy of his time.

The act of updating and transplanting characters/plot from one time/place to another has served Shakespeare reasonably well over the years and it works for Johnson’s stylized dialogue as well. Though there is a whiff of novelty about Johnson’s central conceit that won’t go away there’s also much substance beneath it. Genuine menace, meets sometimes-outrageous humor but the quest for truth and justice makes it all seem part of the same world.

If in the end Brick sets up a thoroughly unlikely scenario for it’s high school age characters it does so in order to get at the heart of the experience of getting in over your head in the high school years. Dangerous experimentations of all kinds, and testing the limits of personal power leave most of us with enough psychological scars to remake any classic noir. Ultimately this movie belongs on the shelf next to other teen dramas like Mean Creek or Stand By Me but one can’t help wonder what would it look like next to other stylized gangster fare like the Coen Brothers Miller’s Crossing or neo noir like The Singing Detective. No worries if you need a few more viewings to decide Brick will more than support them.

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Reader Comments

  1. abrack 04/11/2006 @ 8:25pm

    With all due respect, I can’t believe that people continue to like this movie. It was extremely dissapointing, on many levels. Original? I have to disagree - the movie blatantly recycles noir stereotypes without giving any of the characters any shred of identity other than their type, reducing them to obvious constructs, and as such rendering them unrelatable. The fact that its a high-school noir is about as original an idea as that of whoever thought “lets do a modern high-school Shakespeare, and call it 10 Things I Hate About You!” Actually, its more like Baz Lurhmann’s Romeo + Juliet, another movie that unsuccessfully shoehorned an update of classic material into a flashy, incomprehensible mess of a film.

    Like that film, the main problem here is the dialogue - it’s rediculous. Yes, I know its supposed to be highly stylized and “authentic” to the noir genre, but in the end it was almost incomprehensible, used almost as a tool by the filmmaker to disguise the film’s thin plot and weak story by making it difficult to decipher what was actually going on. Halfway through the film I realized that I didn’t know what the hell was going on, but I did know enough to know that I didn’t care.

    Also, there is absolutely no reason for this film to be set in a high school. It could just as easily be a regular noir, with adult characters, in an adult world. Never is a classroom shown. Once is a parent figure introduced. And a few small and highly inconsequential scenes involving the principal as hard-ass police chief are certainly not enough to justify the setting. None of the characters act like anything even close to a high-school student, except for when going for cheap laughs, as with the Pin’s mother.  They are all adults with absolutely no childlike qualities about them. As such, it is obvious that the high-school element of the film was merely an idea not capitalized on, or a hook, or a gimmick to make the film seem “original.” The fact that people (including Sundance) continue to herald this film as something new or unique, when in fact there is a complete dearth of original thought in the film, speaks loudly of the style-over-substance problem with today’s independent film world. Rian Johnson will surely move on to where he belongs - doing big budget, high concept, Hollywood junk food.

  2. Bryant 04/12/2006 @ 4:58pm

    I agree with Canfield. The thing that makes this movie go is the way the teens fail to carry the weight of the noir experience. Brendan’s not just the weary noir hero; as evidenced by his breakdown halfway through the movie, he’s a kid who can’t possibly handle the trauma he’s going through.

  3. abrack 04/12/2006 @ 11:58pm

    Eh...I dunno. The breakdown, to me, did not signify that the inability of the character to deal with what was happening had anything to do with his age, or the notion that he, or any of the other characters, were purposely playing to their individual types out of some sort of emulation, or because “that’s all they know.” That said, Gordon-Levitt’s character never does “fail to carry the weight of the noir experience.” He is always collected, on top of his game, etc, even when being beaten to a pulp. His breakdown is more or less the only time we see him vulnerable, and any person, grown or teenage, would have a breakdown dealing with all the shit that goes down in this movie. Because of that, I don’t feel the breakdown is evidence that the film is exploiting the fact that he is a teenager. And really, look at what happens in the film. It is filled with drug trafficking, cold-blooded murder, casual sexuality, etc. Yes, I know many films have been made about how all these things exist in the world of teenagers, and that is valid and worthwhile, but this film does explore the impact of these things in regard to the age and milieu of the characters, and as such does not comment on any of these potent societal ills.

    Personally, I think you guys are giving the film far too much credit, you’re thinking on the film’s goals/methods is probably far more in depth than the filmmaker’s themselves. Sure, the characters are “trapped in a world they don’t understand,” but who isn’t? That doesn’t mean that they can’t still be relatable characters. Except for Gordon-Levitt, and perhaps the angry, musclebound kid, none of them are given any opportunity to show more than one mode of behavior, it is all very surface-level.

  4. Bryant 04/13/2006 @ 12:50pm

    Except that noir protagonists generally don’t have breakdowns. Take, I dunno, Out of the Past. Robert Mitchum didn’t break down; he just kept on keeping on, cool and collected. Take Point Blank—Lee Marvin isn’t collapsing at any point. Brendan’s breakdown is playing against stereotype, and I think it’s got to be significant because it’s just about the only thing in the movie that does.

  5. molly b. 04/21/2006 @ 11:12pm

    I’ve been a bit obsessed with this film lately, actually. I think trying to pull this film apart as a realistic representation of teenagers or criticize it for not commenting Kids-style on the social ills it portrays shows a marked misunderstanding of what the movie is. It’s a totally subjective, almost dream-like portrayal not of high school life, but of the heightened inner state of being a teenager. It’s operating much more on the level of a David Lynch film than a Larry Clark one. And after reading interviews with the director (see? Obsessed! i swear I’m not his girlfriend...) I don’t think I’m reading more into it than he intended. Here’s a bit from one I pulled off Rotten Tomatoes where he responds to the idea that the movie is all style and gimickry:

    Johnson: I always cock an eyebrow at that criticism, honestly. “Brick” has quite a bit of substance for me, and I can’t imagine spending nine years of my life on something that was just a stylistic stunt. I suppose a few things are behind that criticism—first and foremost, “Brick” does operate on a level of grand artifice. It’s a totally unreal world, not “realistic” at all, and I suppose when the facade is this big and obvious it’s very easy to react just to the facade and turn a lazy eye to what might lie just behind it. Secondly, I think we’re very used to having a movie’s substance delivered in a certain way. Especially with teen movies, we like to be the grown ups looking down on that silly part of life and drawing neat conclusions and morals from it. “Brick” has none of that. Its substance (for me at least) lies in capturing in a very heightened, bold, and impressionistic way what those teen years felt like when you were in them, not from analyzing them from an adult perspective.

  6. Rovane Durso 01/11/2007 @ 8:29pm

    I think “Brick” has the credit it deserves. I just watched the movie yesterday and was very intrigued by the rawness of it’s characters. On an entertainment level, it did the work for me. Original to a certain aspect. I agree with some of Canfield comments but would not go as far as taking the credit away from the director’s first time project especially for a low budget movie, I they did a pretty descent job.
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  7. freakyfriend 08/16/2007 @ 3:25pm

    Personally this was my favourite flick of 2006. It was just so refreshing to see a movie go in a different direction than the “norm”. Joseph Gordon Levitt was fantastic in it, he continues to impress me to this day.

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