Brick

Theatrical Release Date: 2006 03 31 (USA - Limited)

UPC: 065935401919

Studio: Ais

Summary: A tough-talking teen attempts to uncover his ex-girlfriend's killer in director Rian Johnson's hard-boiled high-school noir, told in the style of a Dashiell Hammett mystery. An outsider by nature, Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is forced to penetrate the elaborate ranks of the high-school social scene and its more insidious underbelly when the body of his former girlfriend Emily is found lying lifeless in a remote creek. Though the pair had been on the outs, Brendan can't seem to shake the hysterical phone call that he received from Emily the day before her body was discovered, a call in which she rattled off a number of cryptic words: "brick," "pin," "tug," "poor Frisco." He's determined to find the guilty party, and to do that he'll need to uncover the meaning behind her enigmatic phone call. From the highest-ranking athlete to the lowest-level burnout, no one is above suspicion of leaving her in that creek or putting her in the position to end up there. Brendan's skill for getting the right attention from the right people leads him to a local drug dealer of urban-legendary status (Lukas Haas), who walks with a cane and lives with his mother. As Brendan infiltrates the social and political web more deeply, his theory solidifies and each player's role becomes clear, from the shifty-eyed pot slinger to an upper-crust innocent who may well be a femme fatale. Brendan may soon be ready to make his case, even if it's too late for him to get out. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Category: Mystery

Awards: In Competition – Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision – Sundance Film Festival John Cassavetes Award – Independent Spirit Awards Producers Award – Independent Spirit Awards Best Foreign Independent Film – British Independent Film Awards Best Original Screenplay – San Francisco Film Critics Circle Best First Feature – Toronto Film Critics Association Most Promising Director – Chicago Film Critics Association Best Original Score – Satellite Awards Best Screenplay – Utah Film Critics Best First Film – Austin Film Critics Best Picture – Austin Film Critics Breakthrough Filmmaker – Online Film Critics Association

Brick

Format: Blu-ray

Release Date: 08/16/2011

Cammila Collar

A film noir that takes place at a high school sounds impossible to pull off. It smacks of a director mashing together disparate styles just to watch them clash. And yet, Brick transcends all of these trappings to become one of the best films in years. It might seem impossible, but only if you forget what the film noir approach really is. The style has become such a part of the historical lexicon, we start to characterize it through clich?s, the superficial hallmarks that pop up in well-known examples. Soon we're defining it with the stereotyped voice-over narrative and pointlessly ambiguous dialogue that comedians employ when the audience calls out "film noir" on Whose Line Is It Anyway? But Brick goes to something much deeper; it relies on those well-worn artistic qualifiers only as they serve the story and all the characters in it, since they were all created in the noir world from the bottom up. What's far more fundamental to noir than its deadpan one-liners and femme fatales is the way it alludes to a dark, scary world that lurks just below the surface of the ordinary. Behind plain-looking streets, inscrutable men, and enigmatic women is a sinister web of deceit and betrayal, corruption and greed. Brick accomplishes this seamlessly, and makes the setting seem like a natural fit; the goings-on in high school can be just as arbitrary, complex, and potentially dangerous as drug-running or insurance fraud. The effortless use of rapid-fire slang -- a standard cinematic behavior both for 1930s gangsters and modern-day teenagers -- comes off as perfectly organic. The heroes of noir are flawed everymen, only smarter, quicker, and cooler, and leading actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt scores a home run in this role. His protagonist is bitingly intelligent and magnetically relatable, constantly prompting the audience to cheer him forward and fear for his peril. The real magic of film noir is how it subtly repaints its content, warping the frightening, brutal nature of the darkest human behavior and making it into something both dangerous and beautiful: the ultimate cool. The way Brick accomplishes this task is perhaps the most impressive of its feats. It avoids both gum-snapping trendiness and unreasonable characterizations, finding a middle ground where what you see is strange enough to draw you in but believable enough to keep you watching. ~ Cammila Collar, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Ram Bergman  Producer 
Mark Mathis  Producer 
Rian Johnson  Director 
Rian Johnson  Screenwriter 
Nathan Johnson  Composer (Music Score) 
Norman Dreyfuss  Executive Producer 
Johnson Communications  Executive Producer 
Lisa Johnson  Executive Producer 
Craig Johnson  Executive Producer 
Joseph Gordon-Levitt  Actor 
Nora Zehetner  Actor 
Lukas Haas  Actor 
Noah Fleiss  Actor 
Noah Segan  Actor 
Matt O'Leary  Actor 
Meagan Good  Actor 
Emilie de Ravin  Actor 
Lucas Babin  Actor 
Brian J. White  Actor 
Richard Roundtree  Actor 
Reedy Gibbs  Actor 

Country: USA