Sleeper Cell: Brick

After seeing 500 Days of Summer this past…uh…summer, Joseph Gordon-Levitt being generally bad ass in that movie reminded me that there was another movie of his that I had wanted to see. That movie was Brick, a film from ‘05 that I fully intended to go see in theatres but actually didn’t get around to seeing until this past November. By that point, I had honestly forgotten what the movie was about and why I had originally wanted to see it 4 years ago, so I fought the urge to Google it and even tried to not read the back of the DVD case after having rented it. Goddammit, I’m glad I didn’t Google it. It was like getting something you had forgotten you really wanted for Christmas and at the time you asked for it you were kind of half joking, fully expecting to not get it but then holy crap, somebody actually went out and got it for you. It was that kind awesome.

Brick is a detective story written and directed by Rian Johnson, the man responsible for ’09’s charmingly cool con-artist movie, The Brothers Bloom. However, Brick isn’t The Brothers Bloom. It’s not even charming. It’s as fucked up and as hardboiled as any really good detective story. What sets it apart is that rather than dressing it up like typical film noir, Johnson forgoes the fedoras, the flappers, the black and white film, the 1920’s through the 1950’s and instead dresses up his numerous, young costars as modern Californian high school kids. Don’t sigh. I told you that this movie is super hardboiled. There isn’t a hint of after school special, I promise.

The film’s plot centers around Brendan Frye (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a way too smart for high school loner trying to solve the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Emily (Emilie de Ravin, from Lost) after having found her body keeping a storm drain company during the film’s opening. Next, the titular brick of heroin is mentioned in a flashback scene by Emily while she’s on the phone with Brendan scared out of her mind because it turns out that the brick’s “bad” and “The Pin” is after her. This of course leads Brendan down the dark and subculture-y back alleys and preppy parties of modern high school, looking for Emily’s killer. Along the way, he meets jocks, drug addicts, motor heads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, and dickheads with most of them not adoring Brendan or thinking he’s a righteous dude.

I could probably go more into the story at this point and not even approach spoiler country because it’s very convoluted. However, it’s never a convoluted mess. The story here is very well written and even if you don’t really get all the details straight watching it the first time, I think you’ll find it engaging and at least get the impression that everything fits together nicely. In that regard, it’s a credit to its genre. What makes the story work is that the world that Johnson has created gels. Decked out in drab colors, the world is easy to get into in that it’s great to see all these classic character archetypes thrown into a setting any of us can relate to and see how they might work. He’s managed to do this without any of the characters seeming too stereotypical all while bringing to the forefront the traits that make those kinds of characters great. There aren’t any bad one liners or bad cliches.

As far as performances go, they range from great to serviceable. Joseph Gordon-Levitt stands out above the rest as the adult sounding, reluctant detective in this movie. It’s like he and Johnson took everything that made Humphrey Bogart’s characters hard and sharp tongued, threw in the mental acumen of Sherlock Holmes, and made him look like a nerd. He’s not even a cool nerd like his right hand man, The Brain (Matt O’Leary), who at least looks like a hipster tech geek. Brendan looks like the kind of nerd that let’s his mom dress him and he’s wearing dress shoes with jeans the majority of the movie. It’s like they’re daring you to not take him seriously much the same way the Cohen brothers dared you to not take Anton Chigurh and his pageboy seriously in No Country for Old Men. But the first few scenes with Brendan leave you with the inability to argue that the kid’s an intuitive and logistical bad ass. He deals with most aggressors with his quick wit but even the way the Brendan throws down in a fight, which is cheap and balls to the wall, is impressive because you get the impression that he fights like that knowing his opponents don’t expect it from a scrawny little twerp like him. He’s cool in spite of himself and when the film ended, I was left knowing that I wouldn’t mind further adventures with a grown up Brendan Frye.

Probably the next most notable actors would be Lukas Haas (Mars Attacks!) and Nora Zehetner (Heroes, Grey’s Anatomy) Honestly, I don’t really want to go into Haas’ role as The Pin too much save for the fact that he’s aptly named. It’s best if you meet him with a blank slate. Zehetner…I don’t know. At first, part of me wasn’t buying her in the role of Laura, the femme fatale. She’s just seemed too young and cutesy, especially when I associate such roles with a young Lauren Bacall or any of Hitchcock’s blondes. However, then I came to the realization that this was taking place in high school, so she may actually have been perfect for the part. That kind of character demands attention be drawn to them; they’re always supposed to seem out of place in the world around them. But Laura stands out in that she’s a high school girl. She’s cute as hell but not sultry. It’s just a little weird to have her stand out for reasons that I don’t normally associate with that archetype, especially when all the male roles don’t really deviate from their normal conventions in noir. She’s in contrast with the rest of the cast but because she seems more impish than hot but in retrospect, I think it works really well.

Emilie de Ravin, as previously mentioned and probably the only other noteworthy actress, is in the film and for the role she plays, she does fine. Oh, and Richard “the original Shaft” Roundtree makes an appearance in a small role. The rest of the cast reads like a who’s who of young actors with credentials that consist primarily of Law & Order appearances, sequels that should never have happened and mainstream movie knock offs that make me want to set myself on fire rather than ever walk into a Blockbuster again. Despite this, the rest of the cast manages quite well.

While I personally think this movie is the second coming in a lot of ways, I suppose one mark against it could be that for about the first 15-20 minutes, it’s really easy to get lost in the film’s terminology and quick dialogue, at least it was for me. Of course, I wouldn’t have this kind of movie any other way but it might be a turn off for some. Every line of dialogue is delivered in such a way that you feel that it’s loaded with extra secretive meaning. I’ll use an example from early on in the movie when Brendan tells The Brain to set up a meeting with someone. As ridiculous as it sounds, the term “lunch” is dropped in such a “hint, hint, wink, wink” way very early on that when The Brain asks Brendan where he wants to have his meeting and Brendan replies “you know where I eat lunch,” I fully expected the next scene to have Brendan and his contact meeting in a back alley, restroom, or hot air balloon. Nope, it’s the patio area of the school’s cafeteria. Even my wife said out loud, “oooohhh…it is lunch.” Like I said, this is early on in the movie and it already had us second guessing everything everybody was saying. Other than the getting lost in translation, I can’t really fault the movie for much else and even that problem can be rectified with an additional viewing. Pacing, acting, cinematography, and score are all either par or top notch.

Now, in the interest of objectivity, I have to tell you that I’m a whore for noir flicks. Big time. I can watch a film about a smart ass protagonist, a mysterious femme fatale, and a McGuffin that might as well be a rubber duck with a bow tie with the end result having me just as confused as I when I started watching it. But still, if it’s giving me the impression that I got it overall, call me pleased as punch. That being said, you may not like this movie for those very reasons. But I say give it a go, even if you think it might not be your cup of tea. It oozes style as well as substance but at the very least, you’ll want to check it out for JG-L getting his acting chops on. He’s quite impressive in this and has got me excited to see how he’ll do in Inception. Oh and as far as Rian Johnson goes, this is two for two. I’ll be there day one for his next flick, Looper, which has a  premise that sounds insane.

Brick is officially approved and highly recommended.

Sleeper Cell is a weekly column that will reflect movies that you perhaps missed or have always been meaning to watch but are too much of an asshole to place into your Netflix queue.  This could be a movie from 50 years ago or a movie from last year.  Bottom line, these are choice flicks and you missed out so Zack and our other writers are going to tell you what’s up.

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