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Brick (Widescreen)
 
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Brick (Widescreen)
4.7 out of 5 stars  (3 customer reviews)
List Price: CDN$ 12.95
Price: CDN$ 10.36 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details
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Availability: In Stock. Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca. Gift-wrap available.

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3 used & new available from CDN$ 8.98

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Brick (Widescreen) The Lookout
Total List Price: CDN$ 33.78
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Product Details

  • Format: NTSC
  • Language: English
  • Studio: Alliance (Universal)
  • DVD Release Date: Aug 28 2007
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  (3 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B000FKP4BU
  • Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #5,582 in DVD (See Bestsellers in DVD)
    (Studios: Improve Your Sales)

Product Description

Amazon.com
High school collides with hard-boiled film noir in the twisty, cunning Brick. When he gets a mysterious message from his ex-girlfriend, a high school loner named Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mysterious Skin) starts to dig into a crisscrossed web of drugs and duplicity, eventually getting entwined in the criminal doings of a teenage crime lord known as the Pin (Lukas Haas), his thuggish henchman Tugger (Noah Fleiss, Joe the King), and a mysterious girl named Laura (Nora Zehetner, Fifty Pills). Brick has not only the seductive, labyrinthine plot of a crime thriller by Dashiell Hammett (The Maltese Falcon) or Raymond Chandler (Farewell, My Lovely) but also a dense high-school version of hard-boiled lingo that's both comic and poetic. The movie unfolds with headlong momentum as Brendan manipulates, fights, and staggers his way through layers of high-school society. Gordon-Levitt is excellent; between this and the equally compelling Mysterious Skin, he's left his 3rd Rock from the Sun days behind. Also featuring Meagan Good (Waist Deep) and Richard Roundtree (Shaft). --Bret Fetzer

Brendan Frye is a loner, someone who knows all the angles but has chosen to stay on the outside. When the girl he loves turns up dead, he is determined to find the "who" and "why" and plunges into the dark and dangerous social strata of rich girl Laura, intimidating Tug, drug-addled Dode, seductive Kara, and the ominous Pin. But who can he really trust? These are the ingredients of Brick, a gritty and provocative thriller that critics describe as "a clever, twist-filled whodunit!" (Claudia Puig, USA Today)

Description
A noir mystery set in a modern-day Southern California neighbourhood. In his high school, Brendan Frye’s piercing intelligence spares no one. Brendan is not afraid to back up his words with actions, and knows all the angles; yet he prefers to stay an outsider, and does–until the day that his ex-girlfriend, Emily, reaches out to him unexpectedly and then vanishes.

Bonus Features:
Deleted and Extended Scenes with Introductions by Director Rian Johnson; Short Film "Origami Master": Rian Johnson's short film he made with his high-school buddies; Auditions: Nora Zehetner and Noah Segan.


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Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
5 star: 66%  (2)
4 star: 33%  (1)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
 
 
 
 
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Most helpful customer reviews

 
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Rian Johnson plays out a Dashiell Hammett film noir in a high school setting, Aug 9 2006
By Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(#1 REVIEWER)   
To know whether or not you would be interested in watching "Brick," all you have to do is answer a rather odd little question. Are you interested in seeing a Dashiell Hammett hard-boiled detective story played out as a high school film noir? Now if you are a fan of Hammett and the book and/or movie version of "The Maltese Falcon" the idea of a teenagers spouting dialogue like they were Sam Spade and Kaspar Gutman trapped in younger bodies might be enough to put you off your lunch already. Furthermore, if you are well versed in American cinema the idea might bring to mind Alan Parker's "Bugsy Malone," which put Jodie Foster and a bunch of other pre-teens in a 1930s Chicago gangster movie. But that weird little experiment was not half bad and "Brick" is a lot more successful in trying to pull this off and is a lot closer to "Sin City" than to "Bugsy Malone." "Brick" won the Sundance Film Festival's Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision, and you have to grant writer-director Rian Johnson that much for sure.

At the start of the film, Johnson's hero Brendan Frye (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) finds the dead body of Emily (Emilie de Ravin) in a drainage ditch. She had called him earlier in the day pleading for help and later saw her in the back seat of a car as it drove away. Now she is dead. So he decides to find out who killed her and starts backtracking on what she had been doing and with whom. The only one Brendan can trust is the Brain (Matt O'Leary), who is basically a walking computer who observes a lot by just watching while it seems he is working on his computer or solving a Rubik's Cube. This leads him to the high school drug ring and the major players, although not without Brendan getting his face smashed in a few times in his effort to shake things up and see what happens next.

The other players are the Pin (Lukas Haas), Tugger (Noah Fleiss), Dode (Noah Segan), and Brad Bramish (Brian J. White), with Laura (Nora Zehetner) and Kara (Meagan Good) as the femme fatales. Beyond that last alliterative appellation I do not want to say who is what because half the fun here is in watching Brendan find out who is what. The other half is listening to what these characters have to say, because the rhythms are Hammet's, but the glossary is often idiosyncratic and the dynamic is pure high school (My favorite is when Brendan is engaged in a conversation that has descended down to both parties saying "Yeah" a lot and he finally shoots back, "There's a thesaurus in the library. Yeah is under 'Y'. Go ahead, I'll wait").

While for the most part this movie takes place in a Charlie Brown world where adults are absent, there are a few notable exceptions. Brendan has been of use to Assistant Vice Principal Trueman (Richard Roundtree) in the past, but that relationship is now tenuous. However, it does suggest that the "bulls" are out there somewhere, and Brendan has to get to the bottom of things without or at least before the authorities get involved. Then there is the Pin's mother (Reedy Gibbs), whom I mention simply because very rarely do you get to see a criminal mastermind's mother putter around the kitchen making sure everybody has something to drink.

Everybody in "Brick" is dead serious about what they are doing and they never blink an eye at all of the verbiage that comes spilling out every time they start flapping their gums. The illusion of this strange reality is maintained from start to finish, when Brendan confronts the guilty party in the middle of a high school football field. At that point Johnson most clearly invites comparisons to "The Maltese Falcon" because at this point he knows that you have either bought the game plan here and will enjoy the more overt homage, or this would be the final nail in the coffin. For me the results are certainly enough to warrant rounding up on this 2005 film and to hope that Johnson can find something equally creative for his next venture. That will be hard to do, but you have to feel that based on "Brick" he might be able to carry it off and not be a one cult classic wonder.

Final Note: Is Emilie de Ravin ever allowed to play a character that is not pregnant? I am just asking, because after "Roswell" and "Lost" we are now at the point where that seems to be all she plays and I can just see Hollywood execs saying "We need an actress to play a young pregnant woman, go get Emilie de Ravin." If she ever does become pregnant for real people are going to look at her and ask what movie she is doing it for.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Who took the brick?, Jun 3 2007
By Kona (Emerald City) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)   
As the story opens, high school student and former drug dealer Brendan Frey (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), receives a cryptic message from his ex-girlfriend, Emily. She dropped him when she started hanging out with the popular kids, and now she's missing. Brendan's search leads him through a maze of nasty jocks and violent drug dealers that eventually leads to Emily's dead body. Now Brendan must find the killer - is it the local drug lord, the drama queen, the hit man, or an enigmatic cheerleader?

If you're looking for something really different, "Brick" is for you. Rian Johnson wrote and directed "Brick" as an homage to the film noir style of the forties. To call the characters and dialogue "hard-boiled" would be an understatement. They are all so jaded and calloused and see little of value in life. They speak in a teen/drug codethat is so unique I actually had to turn on the subtitles to understand the dialogue. That didn't detract from the movie at all, however. Once I figured out what the slang meant, it was a fascinating new language.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt has matured a lot since he was in "Third Rock From the Sun." He carries the movie with his James Dean-charisma and brooding charm. Lukas Haas gives a subtle, eerie performance as the club-footed drug lord. There is only one adult in the movie, making the teens seem even more alone and alienated from mainstream society. This is a moody, intense, and unflinching look at the teen drug world. (It's interesting that there are no curse words and no drugs are actually mentioned by name.) Highly recommended.
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4.0 out of 5 stars This sunny little noir film gives us a sense of darkness with a touch of urgency, Jul 3 2007
By Jenny J.J.I. "A New Yorker" (That Lives in Northern Nevada) - See all my reviews