Brick

Start your weekend off right. With some Back Row Critiquing. Today we look over Brick, a film by Rian Johnson (Looper), and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and some other people.

Netflix: All signs point to yes
Pick: Minas Markul

Dylan: So, before I rant about this movie, I’ll give you five minutes to tell me...what the fuck this movie is supposed to be about.

Mark: Alrighty then.  Now understand that the first thing I bring up will sound like a spoiler or something, but it is shown in the first minutes of the film, so shut up, it’s fine.  Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) finds in a drainage tunnel the dead body of his ex-girlfriend Emily.  The movie, after lingering there for a few moments, effectively setting the tone for the film, jumps back two days to when Brendan receives a letter and then a call from the now not quite deceased ex.  What proceeds from here on out is Brendan at first trying to find Emily and find out what’s gotten her so distressed.  This leads him into an underground dope ring that somehow connects back to Emily.  Now, the most interesting part of how this is all framed is that the two days expire well before the movie is even halfway over, giving us a little time to understand the social settings Brendan has to deal with while also setting up the dark underworld of drugs he has to enter into to find Emily’s killer.  I mean, that was the best synopsis I could give to frame it for everyone without going too far, but let's hit this right on the head: what lost you in the movie?  Cause I found it pretty straightforward honestly.  Some very interesting twists and turns with the plot to keep it moving, but nothing that threw me for a loop.

Dylan: Haha, ‘loop’. Anyways, it’s not so much the plot that threw me off. It was just how incredibly strange and, in my opinion, unbelievable it all is. Okay, so all of the characters are High School kids. Except Brendan is and his buddy are like...mystery-solving, crime-fighting geniuses. And they speak in code that no cop show on the planet has prepared me for. Meanwhile there’s that chick (also a teenager) who has a mansion and throws lavish private parties. And another one is a drug kingpin, and another one is a murderer. There are no police, parents, or teachers (which is troubling, since much of the movie takes place in and around a High School) nearby at all, except for Pin’s mom, who serves juice to Brendan after the other guy beats the hell out of him. And the dialogue is so strange and out-of-place that for a while I figured I would understand the story better if I just muted it and pieced it together based on what I saw.

...I can tell this is a movie that you liked, and I didn’t.

Mark: Well right off the bat, Rian Johnson, the director, wanted to make a homage to the novels of Dashiell Hammett, who is best known for novels like The Maltese Falcon and The Glass Key.  These were hard-boiled detective novels, but he felt that no matter what he did, it wouldn't feel original, which is the reason it was moved to the High School setting.  The idea was to involve the students and play with the setting of their social atmosphere rather than the school itself.  And Brendan does have that conversation with the Vice Principal, so there’s one more adult for you.  And I didn’t get that they were so much “crime fighting geniuses”, but rather these two were the absolute outcasts in this social world.  By that I mean not that they couldn’t join a group, but rather that they knew everything about all the groups, which was something I found really interesting for Brendan’s character.  he stood out to everyone, but could still navigate it all so effortlessly.

And as for the dialogue, yeah, it’s is quite confusing, at first.  Maybe it came easier to me cause I’m more English-focused than you, but it took just some time to kinda decode the language.  But even beyond what sounds like something no one should ever have to do for a movie, it helps to really create a kind of microcosm, of sorts, for this school and students.  That they exist in some sort of world within the world.  And I think this is perfectly demonstrated with the Pin’s mother; as she treats all the teenagers, regardless of what crew they’re with, as teenagers.  All the while, in the scene, we know what else is taking place.

Dylan: Okay, yea, I definitely picked up on how the dialogue and story did not match the High School setting. And I’m not sure that really made it better, even if it was, perhaps, more original. And when you explain his role as an outcast, I can sort of see it a little better. But I still feel like I had to assume too much just to follow the plot. Since you mentioned that scene with the VP, I'll bring it up again. The conversation between the two of them would be better suited for a detective and his informant. And I guess that's the point. It's a noir cop drama that has been reimagined for High School. But for me, the effect was that the characters don't seem realistic (or likable) at all.

Mark: Ok, I’m gonna pull it back here and ask which characters did you find really unrealistic?  Now I’m not saying I went to school with thugs and drug lords, for all I know, but I felt that they weren’t unrealistic, but just their stereotypical nature pushed to the extreme.

Dylan: I went to High School. I don’t remember every student having some deep and cunning agenda. Specifically I’m talking about Brendan, Lauren, and Kara, who all seem to be playing an elaborate game of chess with each other over information. And I can understand how High School students would toy with each other and with people outside of their group. But there's a lot of drugs and murder going around, which somehow the adult world is oblivious to, and these kids are navigating it way too easily and fearlessly.

Mark: I guess I will cede that they are, in a way unrealistic, but that didn’t take away from anything, nor take me out of the movie.  Each of the main characters basically represented the epitome of their social circle.  Tug, the Pin’s main bodyguard of sorts, is incredibly aggressive in every way.  But in the sense of the detective novel, he has to represent the main physical threat to Brendan.  Ergo, he’s as violent and aggressive as he can be.  Kara, who is the socially manipulating head of the drama social circle, is the femme fatale, who, yes is playing a kind of chess game with Brendan.

Dylan: Alright, well I guess I didn’t see them as representing a social circle. They just seemed so outlandish (and, you don’t really see them with a group of people). And unbelievable characters aren't necessarily bad for a movie. I guess what I'm saying is, this movie had all the makings of one kind of movie -- let's say an indie mystery movie -- but then tries to be something completely different, a noir crime drama or something. It like deliberately doesn't play to its own strengths. 

But let me ask you this. Would you feel the same about the movie if you didn’t already know everything you’ve mentioned about the director and the star and the inspiration and what not? Because I went into it knowing nothing. And from all that, I probably wouldn’t watch it again.

Mark:  I never look things up for new movies before I watch them.  Never.  Like you, I want to go into it with fresh eyes.  And if anything, for me at least, I’d watch it again.  I thought the dialogue was very colorful in the fact that it had a life of it’s own.  Once I learned that he framed this around his love for Hammett novels, I can see where the hard-boiled detective lines are and his own slang is, for the most part.  I read that Cowboy Bebop was a source of visual influence for Johnson as well as for the character of Brendan.  For me, it blended entertaining dialogue with a good detective structure for the story.  I also really liked the use of sound and noise throughout.

Dylan: I will concede that the music and the sound effects were very fitting. It was the music that first made me realize it makes more sense to view the movie as a noir. At which point I started to enjoy it a little more. Other than that, I’m not sure what else I liked about it. As you know, JGL just kind of gets on my nerves. I don’t know if it’s his acting, or what, but I can’t quite take him seriously. And so his character Brendan didn't really do it for me. I wanted to know more about people like Tug. That’s just me.

Mark: I know you have a thing about JGL and he was pretty one-note as Brendan, but I think that plays into the fact that the main cast each represent their social circles.  Brendan is a misanthropic outcast, this is who he is.  Everyone, including him, is established as one thing and then that’s it.  There isn’t any character development for anyone.  Which in most cases can be bad, but I think for this, it’s not about characters themselves, but rather the story and how they’re all involved in this intricate web of lies and manipulation.  And just on the sound one last time, the best was the chase scene through the school; with the sound of shoe hitting concrete amplified.  At first it seems so out of place, but it’s explained through action so well why it sounds that way.

Dylan: Well, I would say there was some character development. For Dode and for Tug. Or at least, they are revealed to be completely different people than we originally see them as. But anyways, got any trivia?

Mark:  Yeah, I can scrounge up some things to question you with.  Alright, first off, what do you think the budget was for this?  And for the hell of it, give me a number.  It’s the Price is Right!  Let’s see what he guesses!

Dylan: The budget was low. Because JGL loves being in indie movies. And my number is 7. Did your question about the number have to do with the question about the budget?

Mark:  Well, yes. And I guess you’re right in that it’s a low number.  The actually budget was a whopping $425,000.  Received from a few backers, friends and family.  Funny, last time we do Following with almost no budget and we move up slightly with Brick.

Alright, here’s another.  We all know -- or, most people do -- that JGL is in Looper, which was directed by Rian Johnson, who did Brick.  But someone else from Brick went to Looper.  Guess.

Dylan: Ah yes, still leagues behind following, in which Nolan paid the actors in donuts. As for the Looper question, it's obviously the dead chick.

Mark:  Emily?  Nope, sorry that is incorrect sir.  In fact Dode, played by Noah Segan, comes back in Looper as Kid Blue.  Who, just for clarification, is the character with the Gat gun and main guy hunting down JGL character of Joe.

Dylan: Oh, right. Yes, I can see it now. Well, I can't say the depth of his characters has really improved at all.

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I think this may be the first time Mark and I have heatedly disagreed about a movie. But hopefully that makes the whole conversation a little more interesting. And don't take our words for it! Go watch the movie and decide for yourself!

And we seem to have forgotten the part where we pick our next movie ahead of time. So again, I'll have to tell you to just keep an eye on Twitter for when we announce our next title. "Whoa, sheriff! We just missed him!" And I'll leave it up to my partner to figure out how that quote is connected.