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Like so many independent films in the last decade or so, Brick's success story started out at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the 'Originality of Vision' award in 2005. The award was richly deserved because the film is extremely innovative, and is one of the best low-budget films of the last few years (it cost under $500,000). Brick deliberately apes the themes of the classic Hollywood film noir, the main departure from which is the setting: a modern high school in California. The major strength of the film is its script, which possesses an energy and vitality that is rare in any film. Debutant writer Rian Johnson (who also directs) clearly has an ear for distinctive dialogue, as the film is packed with it. Johnson even creates a unique slang vocabulary for his characters - for example, "bulls" means cops and "hop" is one of the several words used to refer to drugs. Cleverly, though, despite these new words frequently flying at the viewer it never becomes incomprehensible, partially because the words are gradually introduced during the film and partly because many of them are quite logical. Nevertheless, Brick is certainly a film that you have to concentrate on to fully understand, as both the dialogue and the gripping storyline move at a breakneck pace. As all but two of the characters are teenagers, the majority of the cast are unknowns (or not-very-well-knowns at best), but the actors are excellent without exception, helped immensely by a script populated with numerous memorable roles. The lead is Joseph Gordon-Levitt (the kid from Third Rock from the Sun), and he manages to deliver a quiet, introspective performance that simultaneously manages to be engaging and sympathetic - no mean feat. Writer-director Johnson also employs his brother Nathan to provide the score, which is extremely effective, combining typical film noir touches with a unique junkyard sound. Brick may at times be confusing but it's immensely rewarding by the end, and the maze-like narrative opens up on repeat viewings. It's a film that deserves to be seen, and may mark the beginnings of a prominent career for its director.
The extras
This version is the single-disc release, featuring a commentary as its lone extra. I bought it instead of the two-disc edition because I found it for a fiver. The only feature that I'm bothered about missing from the special edition is the 20-odd minutes of deleted scenes, but I'm sure that is the version to buy if you can find it at a good price.
The summary
Brick is a superb high school detective story which manages to avoid the potential pitfalls of a low budget (it doesn't look cheap) and enthrals right up to its hugely satisfying conclusion. In hindsight it definitely should have been in my Top 10 films of 2006.
