Movies We Like: 'Brick' (2005)

Brendan Frye: “Your muscle seemed plenty cool putting his fist in my head. I want him out.”

The Pin: “Looky, soldier…”

Brendan Frye: “The ape blows or I clam.”

Fast and clever dialogue is one of the best things about hard boiled noir films of the past. Tough guys didn’t need to be big and buff; all they needed was a quick tongue to get them out of the stickiest of situations. Very few films are able to recreate this today.

Brendan Frye (in a sticky situation): “Throw one at me if you want, hash head. I’ve got all five senses and I slept last night, that puts me six up on the lot of you.”

Anyone who read my piece on the case for a film noir revival knows I am a die-hard fan of the genre. Of course, many films in recent years have tried to be noir and failed miserably (The Black Dahlia). One film that is a recent shining example of picture perfect neo-noir is Rian Johnson’s Brick.

This film takes the hard boiled detective novels of the post depression era and combines them with today’s high school drama. This is similar, in terms of adaptation, to how Robert Altman took Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe and placed him in the 1970’s in The Long Goodbye to show us how he would fit in (which wasn’t well at all!). Brick is full of Marlowe-style dialogue. When it comes from high school aged kids it may seem strange at first, but it turns out to be a fun play of genre tropes.

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Brendan Frye (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a loner whose ex-girlfriend, Emily (Emilie de Ravin), has gone missing. He has reason to believe she familiarized herself with a questionable group of people and was worried about her safety. She called him for help one day, but then advised him to forget about it and not get involved. This only built Brendan’s curiosity and when she mysteriously vanished, he began to dig deeper.

Brendan’s investigation leads him into a seedy underworld of drug dealers that he believes are linked to Emily’s death. He quickly finds that the best way to get the truth is to get close to these people. He finds himself in the midst of some rough and interesting company including a seductive femme fatale Kara (Meagan Good), sophisticated socialite Laura (Nora Zehetner), drug abusing Dode (Noah Segan), firecracker Tug (Noah Fleiss), and the infamous drug lord The Pin (Lukas Haas).

As Brendan gathers pieces of the puzzle, we see references to classic film noir. One of the femme fatales is named Laura, which is the title of a great 1944 film starring Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews. There is also a shot of a play from behind the curtain where we see a woman slap a man which is a direct replication of a sequence from Jules Dassin’s Rififi (1955). Another scene shows Brendan laying down looking up at a spinning ceiling fan which emulates a scene from the Coen Brother’s Blood Simple (1984).

The wardrobe in Brick also gives us a kick back to classic noir. Brendan’s shoes are a similar style to those popular in the 1940’s (he also rolls his pants up in a cuff). Kara’s stylish clothes appear to be a mild update from the femme fatales of years past. Both Kara and Laura embody what was crystallized in classic noir films. Everything from the way they walk and what they wear to the seductive looks they throw is deadly cool.

Aside from direct throwbacks, Brick is just as stylistically brilliant as the most aesthetically appealing of noir films. The film’s camerawork allows us to feel Brendan’s desperation as he searches for answers he knows aren’t good. There is a myriad of extreme low and canted angle shots along with high contrast and low-key lighting that can make even the most boring room look intimidating.

Brick is an overall excellent exercise in genre. It remains one of my favorite neo noir films to date. Not only is it dark and mysterious but it is also wildly entertaining. It plays like a combination of Blood Simple and Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. Brick has everything a noir fan could possible want: mystery, murder, femme fatales, a seedy underground world and witty dialogue all while remaining aesthetically appealing. Films like this make me call for a full-on noir revival! Come on filmmakers, I know you have it in you!!