Brick is an R rated thriller mystery movie released in April of 2006 and stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt. This was the directorial debut of now famous director Rian Johnson, most known for his movie Knives Out. 

The story takes place in Southern California and begins when Levitt’s character Brendan Frye receives a strange note and phone call from his distressed ex-girlfriend, Emily. Brendan tries to discover Emily’s secrets and why she seemed so afraid on the phone call, but finds her dead body instead. He is now on the hunt for the killer of the girl he was never able to let go. Brendan is a loner at his high school, but leaves no stone unturned as he infiltrates cliques he previously steered clear of, along with uncovering a drug ring. 

This movie is incredibly underrated. Sure, the plot, when you take a step back, is unrealistic, but according to Gordon-Levitt, everything about it was highly “stylized.” The language they used was unlike what anyone would say in reality, which is hard to pull off, especially when the ambience feels so serious and even gloomy with the sky always looking cloudy and the mostly dull colors seen in the characters’ clothing and their surroundings. It’s impressive how Johnson was able to accomplish this while making it feel like this could be real life,  and you’re not being pulled out of the movie from how absurd everything is.

The actors were incredibly talented and I was surprised to see Gordon-Levitt in such a low budget movie, especially after such big movies like Ten Things I Hate About You and Mysterious Skin.

While Gordon-Levitt applauded actor Richard Roundtree for doing this small movie after big hits like Shaft,I’d like to commend Gordon-Levitt  for the same thing. He did this movie a few years after some of his hit roles, but it makes sense when you see his passion for movies no matter how big they are. He has a clear passion for film which is obvious when you watch his interviews and how he talks about his work.

This neo-noir movie is considered an essential watch by Rotten Tomato critics due to aspects such as the unique camera angles and techniques, the melancholy feel, and performance of the actors. Many reviewers mentioned the combination of a very specific genre being put into a high school setting, using the language seen in the genre mixed with slang, and despite putting nearly opposite things together, Johnson was able to make it make sense. There is a specific scene reviewers tend to reference where Brendan is in the library with his friend Brain when they are trying to figure out a plan to find Emily. 

“No bulls would gum it. They’d flash their dusty standards at the wide-eyes, probably find some yegg to pin, probably even the right one. But they’d trample the real tracks and scare the real players back into their holes.”

When you pull the quote out of the movie it does seem a bit more strange than hearing it as the movie plays, but I do think that this could pass for teenage slang, especially since they are part of very obscure groups and have specific words that they use and no one else would know within their world. You could perceive this scene as using some code language since they are meetings and secret and trying to be discreet.

An issue with many of the critiques is that they think too much about what is normal and who is directing the movie. If you simply watch the movie without thinking about anything else it’s an incredible movie. I also think the actors deserve much more praise for being able to flawlessly perform such a complicated script.

My only real critique was that I felt like the plot was lost a few times and it was hard to understand his reasoning for things. The things he discovered about Emily and the cliques of his school were also hard to keep track of, but he then summarized everything at the end to another character which I think was clear because the director saw how confusing things could get. I don’t think the plot should be hard enough to follow that a summarization is necessary at the end. The hectic plot could also be spun to reflect the emotions Brendan is going through. This perspective makes this less of a critique and more of a compliment that made the film more real and meaningful?

I don’t think everyone will enjoy this movie at first, but ignoring that I still think it is worth watching. At first I was only watching it because I was familiar with Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s work,  but since there wasn’t much hype around it I was skeptical of how good it could be. I was pleasantly surprised and think most will be as well.