Rating: Butter Popcorn
Brendan Frye is a high school student who prefers to be an outsider, until his ex-girlfriend, Emily, calls him at a phone booth and suddenly disappears. With his love for her still strong, Brendan recruits his only true friend, The Brain, to help him in finding Emily. The only clues she left him were three words: brick, tug, and pin. In order to uncover the truths about himself, Emily and the suspects in her disappearance, he must grow closer to the leader of a drug ring and his inner circle.
Brick, in which Rian Johnson make his directorial debut, stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt (10 Things I Hate About You, The Lookout), Lukas Haas (Witness, Mars Attacks!), Nora Zehetner (May, American Pie 2), Emilie de Ravin (The Hills Have Eyes, Lost: Through The Looking Glass), and Noah Fleiss (A Mother’s Prayer, Josh and S.A.M.).
Rian and his crew show off their editing skills in this final cut of the film. Dealing with poor sound quality, Rian’s sound technicians really put their skills to work as the sound in the final product is clear. Not only did he have to face problems with sound, but also had issues when re-shooting some of the scenes, especially the “field scene”. The first time around, the scene was shot in a muddy-looking grass field. When they went back 8 months later for a re-shoot, the field didn’t have the same appearance as it was turned into a football stadium with artificial turf. To get around this scenery change, Rian decided to use long angle close up shots, which did take away the problem while bringing attention to the conversation between Brendan and Laura at this pivotal point in the film.
While in the editing room, Rian found that some scenes had way too many words in them and decided to cut out a bunch. This cutting down on the language accentuates the emotional and physical aspects of the actors performances.
Overall, Brick is a great film-noir-styled murder/mystery. With the editing done in post-production, Rian’s first film is tightly woven together. If you like Dashiell Hammett’s dark stories, which inspired this film, you’ll love Brick!
Release Date: April 7, 2006
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