Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Joseph Gordon-Levitt | ... | Brendan | |
Nora Zehetner | ... | Laura | |
Lukas Haas | ... | The Pin | |
Noah Fleiss | ... | Tugger | |
Matt O'Leary | ... | The Brain | |
Emilie de Ravin | ... | Emily (as Emilie De Ravin) | |
Noah Segan | ... | Dode | |
Richard Roundtree | ... | Assistant V.P. Trueman | |
Meagan Good | ... | Kara | |
Brian White | ... | Brad Bramish | |
Jonathan Cauff | ... | Biff | |
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Reedy Gibbs | ... | Pin's Mom |
Lucas Babin | ... | Big Stoner | |
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Tracy Bitterolf | ... | Straggler (as Tracy Wilcoxen) |
Ari Welkom | ... | Tangles (as Ari Velkom) |
The lonely teenager Brendan finds his former girlfriend Emily dead in the entrance of a tunnel of sewage and recalls her phone call two days ago, when she said to him that she was in trouble. Brendan, who still loved Emily, met bad elements of his high-school trying to contact her, and when he succeeded, she told him that she was OK. He hides her body in the tunnel and decides to investigate the meaning and connection of four words, including "brick" and "pin", that Emily told him to find who killed her. Using the support of his nerd friend Brain, he successively meets the small time drug dealers Kara, Dode, Brad Bramish, Laura and Tugger, to reach the teenager powerful drug dealer The Pin. Slowly, Brendan unravels the motives why Emily was killed and plots a revenge. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
The geography of film noir is usually a neighborhood, a city, a region ... BRICK transposes this geography onto a high school with surprisingly successful results. Watching it brought to mind not only the black & white films of the 40s and 50s, but glimmers of Gus van Sant, David Lynch and River's Edge. What gives BRICK its filmic authenticity (much different from realism) is its language -- the language of Chandler and Hammett, but re-imagined from the lips of contemporary teens.
The effect is staggering. BRICK essentially re-creates a world we thought we knew. Suddenly there are forces at work that we recognize because we knew they were there. But to see them in this noir glow is to give them an exciting new life ... "to see them again for the first time." There are plot twists and surprises aplenty here, although familiar once you realize the inspirations for the film. But familiarity is more than compensated by a superb cast and (not generally noted in these comments) excellent music. Contemporizing the soundtrack keeps us on our toes and makes a significant contribution to the tension of BRICK.
A terrific debut!