box of Jack

Wow. What can I say about this movie? Well first of all, 9/10. Loved it.

Right from the start, you’re treated to a gritty, hardboiled mystery. Who is on the other end of the phone? What are all these names? What’s with this strange slang they speak? Our protagonist is Brendan (played by the boy from 3rd Rock, Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and the film never lets you forget that he is two steps ahead of what you are thinking and all you can do is breathlessly chase after him like overweight cops chasing after Batman. He is here to uncover the truth and it’s a character lovingly translated straight out of film noir.

Dode has the shit kicked out of him by Brendan

The catch with Brick is that it’s set in high school. Brendan is here to figure out the shitstorm brewing around his ex-girlfriend, a plain girl that started hanging with the popular crowd. The football jock is something of a drug dealer, his trophy girlfriend is our femme fatale and the rabbit hole gets deeper from there. The detective story overrides the high school cliches and distorts it into a suburban underworld.

This movie instantly grabbed me and took me on a rollercoaster. By the 10 minute mark, I was squirming in my seat and wondering why, WHY, can’t I make a movie like this. The dialog cuts like daggers and the camera work is so very powerful; there’s a lot of static shots or slow pans. This movie is just so surgically precise with everything it delivers and every conversation always has two meanings. It’s brilliant.

This is where they’ll meet

Hat tips goes to Luke to originally bringing this movie to my attention and Jen telling me how hot the 3rd Rock kid has become. Absolutely do not turn this movie down if you’re in the mood for a good thriller.