Synopsis:
A teenage loner pushes his way into
the underworld of a high school crime ring to investigate the disappearance of
his ex-girlfriend.
Brian's
Rating: A- : I loved this film. I would
have liked to give it an "A", but I could not
quite do it due to a couple different flaws.
Without spoiling anything, there were times
where the dialog and plot were a bit hard to
follow. One really needs to pay attention,
because if you miss a few important details, it
can make large blocks of the film confusing.
This is one I instantly want to watch again, and
reminds me a bit of Memento (except for the
chronology thing). The similarity is in how the
plot is slowly injected to the viewing audience
in an intelligent manner. You have to think
about it, rather than having it thrown straight
in your face, but theses subtleties of plot
revelation are what make both Memento, and this
captivating. I thought the script and the story
were alluring, and the rookie director did an
awesome job on the film despite having to
overcome and obviously low budget. The
characters are all intriguing, and the mystery
element is done well enough to not give it away
too early to the audience.
The only other beef I had with it was the
implausibility that high-school kids would be in
such adult-like situations. That is a small
beef though, and the excellence of the film
overcomes it.
Although I cannot give it an A, I highly
recommend seeing it. I know I will be watching
it again at some point.
The Freak's
Rating: C+ : Clever filmmaking is something
I adore. I love when films attempt to
break the mold of normalcy and filmmakers think
outside the box. Brick is clever in the
way it attempts to set film noir in modern
times, telling detective stories of old in such
a style that you expect Bogart to walk into the
next scene. The real problem here is that
Brick knows it is attempting to be clever, stops
winking at the audience about halfway through
and continues to jam its cleverness into our
mouths. Don't believe me? Listen to
the commentary...I dare you. I watched the
last 15 minutes of the film in hopes of
detecting more closure to the storyline and
learn a little about the creation of the third
act. What I heard was an enormous puff
piece on everyone involved in making the film
("he was so great", "the direction is so
stylish", etc...).
A
final minute where a mystery word is whispered
(direct lift from Lost In Translation) has me
curious but not nearly enough to endure another
two hours of this. Brick has some
extremely clever moments, but is lost mostly in
a sea of its self-recognized undeserving
cleverness.
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