Brick                            ***½

Rian Johnson’s first feature Brick features a loner who finds himself in a dark underworld of drugs and deception as he tries to unravel the mysterious death of his ex-girlfriend.  There are late-night rendezvous, femme fatales, dangerous drug lords, tough bodyguards and people who talk fast and use slang.  If you think this sounds like a film noir from the 1940’s, you’d be right, except that Brick is set in a modern day high school.  At times, it’s like watching high-schoolers play characters twice their age except that most high schools don’t have actors this good. 

 Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Brendan, a quiet teen who discovers the body of Emily, his ex-girlfriend near a storm drain.  In his quest to discover what happened to her, he finds himself getting beat up, losing sleep and not getting straight answers from everyone he questions.  The audience doesn’t get straight answers either, but that’s part of what makes Brick so intriguing.  The complex plot bears some similarities to noir classics like The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep, movies that entertain you through their characters and dialogue not with their easy to understand plots.  It takes 20 minutes or so to get used to the look and sound of Brick with all of the slang and complex plot, but eventually things begin to make more sense. 

 Johnson fills the movie with unusual camera angles and interesting compositions.  Many scenes have characters suddenly entering or leaving the frame.  Other shots remain still as we watch people run or walk for long distances. 

 Brick is worth watching for the outstanding cast and the deliberately murky story.