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BRICK A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2006 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): **
If you ever wanted to know what a high school senior film project might be like, it would probably be something akin to writer and director Rian Johnson's BRICK, which attempts to be this generation's film noir. Set at a high school in a dreary and always overcast California, the murder mystery centers on the search by Brendan Frye (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) for Emily (Emilie de Ravin), his lost and eventually dead friend.
Brendan, like the movie itself, tries to be a real throwback. He calls his friends' cell phones only with a pay phone, and he tells time by a Timex that takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Brendan gets beaten up a lot, and the unevenness of the fight choreography reminds us of the amateurishness of the production.
As Brendan keeps searching for an infamous guy known only as "The Pin," it isn't clear if this nexus of the local drug dealing world is a man or a myth. Actually, I should probably say a boy rather than a man because the movie seems so much like kids playing dress up.
The best thing that can be said of BRICK is that it sustains its mood throughout. But it is rarely successful. Even if it starts off somewhat promisingly, it quickly becomes more tedious than tense. It holds your attention for a while until you begin to realize that the film doesn't deserve it, since it never rises to more than a lame exercise in style.
With lines such as, "Don't come kicking in my homeroom door once trouble starts," there is one possible explanation for the film's failure. Perhaps it was all supposed to be a black comedy. If this is the case, then it's one that generates neither laughs nor smiles. And the seriousness of the film's score argues that the movie expects to be taken quite seriously. Well, I, for one, seriously didn't like it.
BRICK runs a long 1:50. It is rated R for "violent and drug content" and would be acceptable for teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, April 7, 2006. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas. The movie was shown recently at the Camera Cinema Club (http://www.cameracinemas.com) of Campbell and San Jose.
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