I'm not particularly into this genre and then putting it in a high school setting was a bit weird. But it was entertaining to watch because it's so nutty. It's a grounded, nutty film.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 28, 2023

This movie floored me when I first saw it and it still holds up despite some inconsistent performances and pacing. "Brick" made me a lifelong fan of Rian Johnson.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 28, 2023

Brick is a brilliant, bravura and breathtakingly ingenious debut from writer-director Rian Johnson.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 13, 2021

This quirky little film was an audience favorite at Sundance. Fans of teen drama, Heathers division, will enjoy a veteran ensemble: Joseph Gordon-Levitt in his first post-Mysterious Skin appearance, the lovely Lukas Haas...

| May 9, 2020

Rian Johnson boldly decided to mash together a high school flick and a neo-noir, and the result is surprisingly good.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 19, 2020

Brick is quotable, clever and cryptic...

| Sep 26, 2017

...it's impossible not to wish that the first-time filmmaker hadn't leaned quite so heavily on the antiquated shenanigans.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 24, 2015

Smart, stylized teen whodunit with violence and drugs.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 22, 2013

Noir fits "Brick" like a glove, stylishly injecting assured tough talk, vice-grip tension, black humor, striking sound design and gunshots sounding like locker doors slammed on options. A great detective story and, for some, a high-school flashback.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 25, 2010

The movie's rigorous dark-lined elegance leaves a punchy aftertaste

| Aug 30, 2009

That rarest of things: a movie called 'unique' that actually is.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jun 3, 2009

Mostly lives up to the hype.

| Apr 29, 2009

This glorified student film is only barely elevated by the talented Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Brendan Frye a noir-speaking California high school misfit caught in the violent middle of a drug gang responsible for the death of his ex-girlfriend (Emilie de Ra

| Original Score: D+ | Apr 20, 2009

Brick is a black-comic ballet through the peculiar terrors of suburban adolescence...

| Original Score: 8/10 | Feb 28, 2008

Whatever it is, wherever it is, whenever it is, it's not remotely like anything else out there.

| Original Score: A | Aug 11, 2007

Brick exemplifies the difference between a cinematic talent show and mere karaoke.

| Original Score: C+ | Jul 3, 2007

An innovative ride that carries the viewer into a world familiar from genre films and the novels of Dashiell Hammett, yet quite unlike anything we've seen before.

| Mar 1, 2007

A refreshing private-eye thriller in a style now widely identified as neo-noi.

| Jan 20, 2007

A good whodunit with some references to films made in the 1940s.

| Original Score: B | Jan 17, 2007

BRICK announces the arrival of a very unique voice in Rian Johnson.

| Original Score: B | Jan 12, 2007