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Brick (2005)


This is one of those movies I've never heard of, but I caught enough of a trailer for the film when watching another film on DVD that I thought I'd give it a watch. It also stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who I just watched and enjoyed in Don Jon (2013), so I was curious to see what he was up to in an earlier work. 

When I first started watching, I noticed the artificial sound to the dialogue. No one talks like that. It's sort of like 21st century high school kids talking like 1940s gangsters.

So, I listened a little bit more. Were they speaking in some sort of high school or generational slang that I wasn't used to? No, I don't think that's it. I think it was an intentional choice made by writer/director to have these high school kids sound like 1940s gangsters. 

This choice doesn't work for me. I think it's a gimmick, and I wonder what the film would be like if they just talked normally. I have a feeling that maybe the story wouldn't be strong enough to stand on its own, which is why the gimmick was added. 

Something about the film also gave me Romeo + Juliet (1996) vibes. Now, I like that movie, if with all the weird MTV-inspired liberties it takes. It also reminded of Juno (2007), for the unnatural-sounding dialogue, although the last time I watched Juno, and it's been a while, I kind of just gave the weird dialogue.

Another sin of this movie (or maybe it's just the way the crime fiction genre does things?): When Brendan (Gordan-Levitt) figures it all out, about 8 minutes from the end of the film, he confronts the guilty party. He asks, "Do you want me to spell it all out for you?" And they do, and so he gives them the 2-minute speech about everything that happened, how he figured it out, and so on.  The guilty party still denies guilt, and so Brenden say, "I hope so. I hope I'm wrong," because he's set everything into motion. If the person is innocent, then no worries. But if they're not, they're toast. The Brick will be found in their locker at school.

Really? The Brick is in their school locker? Kind of an odd, public place to keep something like that. Don't high schools normally have random locker checks anyway? 

I would be willing to watch this movie again sometime in the future to give it another chance, but this time, it didn't work for me. 

Rating: 2/5 stars

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