"The story begins with Brendan staring at the body of a young woman in a stormwater drain, her outstretched arm weighed down with blue plastic bangles. Cut to two days earlier, and that same arm slips a note into Brendan's locker, pleading for help and dragging him back into the school's drug ring. A lesser film would wink at this gimmick, but Brick plays it completely straight:"
"At first glance, the teenaged gumshoe at the heart of Brick doesn't share much with the gentleman sleuth from Knives Out, Glass Onion and the upcoming Wake Up Dead Man. Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) styles himself as a lost Agatha Christie character, while Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a jaded teen who spits Dashiell Hammett dialogue before starting fights he can't win."
"Both, of course, are creations of Rian Johnson the writer/director who induces either delight or unspeakable rage, depending on what type of nerd you are. And both Blanc and Brendan play their cards close to their chest and keep the audience guessing, even when they don't know what the question is. Brick basks in the concrete grime of suburban California: carparks, vacant lots and rundown schools."
Brick reimagines hard-boiled film noir within a high school, centering on Brendan, a jaded teenage sleuth who inhabits noir tropes and Hammett-style dialogue. The plot opens with Brendan finding a young woman's body and rewinds two days to a note pleading for help that pulls him into the school's drug ring. The film treats its conceit seriously, offering a twisty plot, moody imagery, a femme fatale, two-bit thugs and a dapper, twenty-something kingpin. The setting shifts noir grit to suburban California carparks, vacant lots and rundown schools, anchored by Joseph Gordon-Levitt's magnetic, emotionally guarded performance.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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