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monica, nolan, colleen and i finally got to see brick at the voorhees ritz the other night. since seeing the trailer in february, i’d been eagerly anticipating the local release of rian johnson’s ‘indie kids meet the maltese falcon’ debut for a few months now. it did not disappoint. don’t worry, i won’t give anything away.

the story is fairly straightforward: brendan frye (joseph gordon-levitt) plays a teenage outcast who becomes wrapped up in the criminal underworld that surrounds his town when his ex-girlfriend emily (emilie de ravin) disappears. he takes it upon himself to find out what happened to her and who’s responsible for it. as the movie goes on, it gets more complex, more violent and as brendan puts it, ‘nobody comes out clean’.

however, the movie is presented in full film noir style with dialogue, clues, characters and a mystery straight out of a dashiell hammett thriller. high school characters fill the roles of archetypes such as the private dick/policeman (brendan), his commanding officer (the vice-principal), the ear-to-the-streets informant (a nerd known as ‘the brain’), the crimelord (described as being ‘old’ at 26, the kingpin or ‘the pin’ for short), plenty of muscle and more than one femme fatale.

absurd? gimmicky? absolutely, but in this case the gimmick works, and feels fresh in this setting. a lot of the credit goes to the cast of mostly unknowns, who approach the naturally cheesy yet ultimately cool lines (’i've got all five senses and i slept last night, that puts me six up on the lot of you’) with gusto and perform it with complete sincerity. i don’t know if this movie would have clicked anywhere near as well as it did without gordon-levitt’s performance. he’s not pretty but just pretty enough for the girls, smart but not bookish, and boy, can he take a beating. the rest of the cast are a great bunch of twisted characters. the pin (lukas haas) and tug (noah fleiss) are ominous and dark, yet vulnerable and sympathetic while laura (nora zehetner) keeps you guessing throughout. the brain (matt o’leary) is a perfect, unemotional foil to brendan, who is constantly at the end of his tether.

johnson pulls out a ton of directorial tricks, yet none of them seem extraneous or self-indulgent. between transitions, handcam shots, a touch of tasteful CGI and david lynch-esque dream sequences you find yourself being sucked into the physicality of the film. there are times where you will actually wince from the onscreen action, not necessarily to the amount of violence (there’s not a lot of gore in this movie) but from the way it’s portrayed. the movie is brilliantly directed. undercutting the heavy nature of the film are a few moments of hilarious absurdity. i won’t tell you here, you’ll know them when you see them. just keep an eye out.

if i have a complaint, there are times in the movie where the dialogue and story come at you way too fast. as you’re busy trying to translate what was just said, something crucial to the story occurs and then you’re wondering what you missed. however, i’m sure this movie is meant to be viewed multiple times. i’ll be happy to oblige.

if you couldn’t tell, i loved this movie. if you get the premise, you’ll love it too. highest recommendation.