ghostman
Joined: 18 May 2006
Posts: 482
Location: The area of your back you can't reach. |
BRICK - the most critically acclaimed indie film
I thought the advertising campaign was great. It looked good... but it was also a Focus film, which means it's gonna be an independent movie, or at least feel like one. And to my conventional standards, that's rarely a good thing.
On the outside, Brick seems like a simple crime drama set within the suburban scapes of high school. Yet the movie entails a spiral of convolusive details and twists that promises to freak out a good percentage of its viewers. And I don't mean the good kind of "freaking-out." Reminder, this isn't a horror film.
To put it lightly, the movie is not easy to understand... although the premise appears clear enough - when Brendan receives a distressed phone call from his ex-girlfriend, he embarks on a school-wide hunt to track down her whereabouts. But by the time he zones in on her, it's too late. Now who comes off as the neo Hercule Poirot of teenagers from Mars, is faced with his biggest crime mystery yet...
The difficulty of enjoying Brick, is trying to keep pace with the lightning fast dialogue. If that weren't enough to challenge your oral comprehension skills, the kids use a completely different set of vernacular obscure to current times, or planet for that matter. In other words, they describe expressions differently... and it's hard to keep up when the script doesn't give the first-time viewers any slack. Every other line seems like a popular analogy from another dimension.
And this typa new age jargon is bound to create a fan club of the screen writer/director's own. However, I don't embrace the idea of watching a movie twice to understand what in blue hell is going on. Thank fortunes I had a DVD player, which I can rewind and replay. The unorthodox productivity of verbage taxes the simple enjoyment aspect of the film, because it feels more like you're studying a literary work.
The "master" plot, isn't any more forgiving, as the gradual collection of evidence, continues to reshape the chain of events that led to one Emily's morbid end. Basic, anyone?
All that said, if you're complaining about the lack of originality in cinema, please give this movie a check. The writer deserves kudos for his cunning atmospheric manipulation of the typical teenage drama. Think Veronica Mars, meets Mulholland Drive and Donnie Darko... and enjoy... or at least try. And if you still can't, don't say I didn't warn ya. 
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