Brick (2006)
The Cast
Joseph Gordon-Levitt .... Brendan
Nora Zehetner .... Laura
Lukas Haas .... The Pin
Noah Fleiss .... Tugger
Matt O'Leary .... The Brain
Emilie de Ravin .... Emily
Noah Segan .... Dode
Richard Roundtree .... Assistant V.P. Trueman
Meagan Good .... Kara
Brian J. White .... Brad Bramish
I wasn't popular back in high school, but I wasn't unpopular either. I was just kind of there for the most part. I had a core group of friends, but not really anyone that stood out head and shoulders above the rest. I was pretty much a lone wolf in sheep's clothing. I knew how to blend in enough to be tolerated by all the different cliques - the stoners, the skaters, the metalheads, the hot chicks, the smokers, the jocks, the nerds, and the average like me. It wasn't until Grade 12 was almost over that I felt confident enough in my own skin to be able to take off that wool jacket and stand on my own. Not to the level that Brendan (Gordon-Levitt) does in this movie, but I learned back then I couldn't rely on anyone other than myself to come through for me.
Why am I telling you this when you just came looking for a movie review? Maybe it's to show that while nothing in this movie resembles any part of my own personal history, I can at least identify with the lead character and his motivations. True, I've never found an ex-girlfriend of mine dead at the mouth of a sewer entrance and my experience with drugs is limited to laughing at a friend of mine losing his mind after smoking some pot and watching Gremlins 2 while I sat there wondering why I couldn't get high as well. Why are the lives I've never led the ones I feel the closest to?
I'd like to think that I'd have been able to live the life that Brendan does at his high school, that of a powerfully smart outsider that is still somehow connected to everyone who's anyone at school. When his ex-girlfriend Emily (de Ravin) calls him in a near-hysterical state, he drops everything to do what he can to help her out. And when he ends up finding her dead, he doesn't make any passionate speeches or anything about how he's going to devote his life to tracking down the murderer. No, he knows what he needs to do, the self-sacrifice, the machinations and manipulations he must set into motion, and he does it because he can't really not do it.
I have this feeling that if writer and director Rian Johnson wanted to continue making movies based around this Brendan character, eventually Brendan would end up as Daryl Zero did in Zero Effect. Zero was an intensely private and reclusive private detective, and pretty much the best in the world at it, and that's the road I can see Brendan heading down towards, albeit in a far more physical fashion.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt deserves some sort of nomination for his performance in this movie, but I'm not holding my breath for that to pan out. Actually I'm not even sure if this movie would be eligible for this year's Oscars as it received some festival play in late 2005 before seeing a limited theatrical release in 2006. Anyways, I find it odd that at some points in this movie Gordon-Levitt looks almost exactly like his former castmate Heath Ledger did in 10 Things I Hate About You all those years ago. Thankfully he backs up the pretty boy-ness with some solid acting chops, convincing the audience that Brendan is both an intellectual and physical threat.
This was more of a rambling introspective self-interview than a full-fledged review, but it's hard to find the right tone to write about this movie in. I thought it was excellently filmed, acted, plotted out, cast, everything was just great. Well, the one minor complaint I have is when writers seem to fall in love with their own work and over-indulge and supply the audience with just a little too much snappy patter. Rian Johnson gets away with it for the most part in Brick because of it's nouveau film noir genre feel, but there are still a few scenes that feel just a little too forced. Johnson's got nothing really to worry about though, since Kevin Smith has gotten away with it for years. Whenever I get around to writing up my Top Ten Movies of 2006 list, I have confidence that there will be a high-ranking place for this excellent movie.
4.5 / 5