jeriendhal | Review: Brick (2006)

Summary: Things are looking pretty bad here at the local high school. See there's this kid here named Brendan, smart cookie, wears glasses and comfortable brogans, and brown bags his lunch behind the portables to get some private time to read. But he's a sap when it comes to his girl. They're three months broke up see, but he's still stuck on her like warm marshmallow on a hot Rice Krispie treat. Except two days after she calls him for help, he finds her dead in drainage ditch and no gunsel around to pin the collar on. And when you're a kid at a high school where every dame and bruiser talks like a character from a Raymond Chandler novel there's only one thing to do. Find the lowlife who did it, before either the bulls or the Vice Principal twigs that you know more than you're lettin' on. 'Cause if they do it means the bad guys will too, and then it's either detention or a knife in the gut for Brendan.

Either way, he's gonna have a lotta homework to make up after he cracks this case.

Review: Mickey Spilliane meets high school cliques. This shouldn't work but it does. No high schooler, even one growing up in 1930's Broolyn, never mind the suburbs of modern LA, ever talked like these kids do, but it works. Once you start buying into the High School Noir high concept you can just settle back and enjoy the mystery, to the point where when a parental figure finally shows up about halfway through the film (the local drug kingpin's mom, who is either clueless or deliberately blind) it's actually kind of jarring. But this speedbump is a minor one on a wickedly cool and clever mystery.

Rent it and minimum, buy it if you're a fan of Noir films and are looking for a nifty twist.