Movie Was Ridiculous! Can’t Believe It Got Okay Reviews, Would Rather Pull My Eye Lashes Out One By One, Then Watch 5 Minutes Of This Movie. Supposed To Be High Schoolers, But Every Actor Acted Like They Were Grown Adults. Only Laughs Were When We Were Making Fun Of Movie.. Only Drama Was The Pain Of Watching This, Hoping It Would Get Better…Sadly It NEVER Did!

This ingenious neo-noir thriller succeeds in its writing and execution. Though quite the absurd concept, Johnson makes it believable. And this film's may be most notable for its incrediblely unique camera angles and techniques, melancholy score, and stellar performance from Joseph Gordon-Levitt. This is a thrilling watch and an essential neo-noir of recent years.

Good for an amateur. I found the dialog annoying and distracting.

Watch this if yo want proof that Rian Johnson actually made a good movie. His next movie should be about how, in 2008, some kind of movie-making Cyborg with no idea how to make movies took over his body and has been pumping out stinkers ever since.

In a seemingly normal high school, something foul is hiding beneath the surface! As a loner investigates the death of his girlfriend, he gets entangled with the many cliques and a powerful drug dealer in his pursuit of the truth. Dreary with a sense of comedy, this film is like Philip Marlowe in school shorts!

Not gonna lie, I only watched the first 25 minutes or so before giving up. It's just so cringe. Who thought combining high school drama and noir was a good idea?? I just can't take these characters seriously.

"Brick" is a wickedly cool movie that blends high school drama with jaw-dropping film noir. Joseph Gordon-Levitt rocks as Brendan, a smart-as-a-whip student tackling a mysterious case involving his ex. The plot is a total mind-bender, keeping you guessing with jaw-dropping twists that'll make your head spin. And the cherry on top? The film's got killer style and dialogue that'll leave you grinning from ear to ear.

Film noir just doesn't work in a high school, at least it doesn't here. I didn't get the impression that it's inherent silliness was even intentional.

Someone's gotta explain that one to me.

Not film noir. A kind of low end wannabe. As with some film noir, there are very confusing storylines, but the adaptation to a high school is borderline ridiculous. If I had the chance again I would watch an episode of Twin Peaks or Blue Velvet instead. Those are both well handled. This is not.

I liked it, It was a terrible story about awful people who all spoke better than anyone else in Hollywood.

Full of incoherent, boring drama.

One of the best films of 2006. A well written film noir thriller transplanted to a modern day southern Californian high school. It shouldn't work, but surprisingly it hits it out of the park.

Love this film! A great example in style and dialog. Rian Johnson as a wrter and Director is a great talent. I've been a fan of his since the beginning!

High school student Brendan Frye (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) discovers a note directing him to a pay phone, where he receives a call from his ex-girlfriend Emily Kostich, begging him for help. She mentions a "bad brick", "the Pin", and "Tug" before abruptly hanging up, apparently afraid of a passing black Ford Mustang, from which a distinctively-branded cigarette is thrown. Unable to locate Emily, Brendan enlists his friend Brain for help. An encounter with another ex-girlfriend, Kara, leads him to a party held by flirtatious upper-class girl Laura Dannon (Nora Zehetner) and her boyfriend, Brad Bramish. Laura points Brendan to Dode, Emily's drug-addicted new boyfriend, who arranges a meeting with Emily... Rotten Tomatoes consensus states: "This entertaining homage to noirs past has been slickly and compellingly updated to a contemporary high school setting." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three out of four stars, stating "[It works] in the sense that the classic Hollywood noirs worked: The story is never clear while it unfolds, but it provides a rich source of dialogue, behavior and incidents." The film's only serious flaw, thought Ebert, was that the characters were not entirely believable and thus it was difficult to care about the outcome of events for the characters. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone also gave the film a positive review, explaining "A spoof would have been easy. Instead, Johnson plunges off the deep end, risking ridicule by shaping this spellbinder with grit and gravitas." Stephen Holden of The New York Times commented, "Mr. Haas and Mr. Gordon-Levitt at least succeed in evoking the outlines of their characters. But the film's ham-handed reliance on period argot not only wears thin; it keeps the characters, such as they are, at a chilly distance." (via Wikipedia) Rian Johnson´s high school neo-noir mystery thriller story is too theatrical and stale both acting wise and production wise in my opinion. And my opinion hasn´t changed since I saw it when it came out in 2005. The narrative centers on a sort of "hardboiled detective" story set in a California suburb and the film draws heavily in plot, characterization, and dialogue from hardboiled classics, especially those by Dashiell Hammett. The eerie vibe and feel is there, but it keeps on going and going and going and then in the end it just dies out in thin air. Joseph Gordon-Levitt´s Brendan acts truly awkward for being a high school kid in many ways during the film, and so does the rest of the characters simply becoming cartoon characters living in their own realm of reality, never really becoming entirely believable. My only treat was Nora Zehetner as Laura. Trivia: The film won the Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, and received positive reviews from critics. It has come to be regarded as a cult classic.

Dull, tasteless, long-winding drama, bored me to nap...

It was a unique high school mystery in the neonoir tradition. It was a bit difficult to follow all the subplots but it kept you interested.

A movie that mixes a high school setting with grim film noir dialogue shouldn't work this well, and yet it does brilliantly in this tight drama of a student searching for his troubled ex-girlfriend caught up in the drug trade. Director Rian Johnson understands the contradictions in this approach, and plays off it for humor, while never letting that get in the way of the dark subject matter. Unique, moving, effective and good for repeat viewings.

Entertaining homage to classic detective stories, takes to a superb cast and unique setting. The actors are excellent across the board, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt giving a breakout lead performance as Brendan, a complicated kid trying to do the right thing. He gets great support from the rest, especially Nora Zehetner, whose Laura is an excellent femme fatale. Behind the camera, writer/director Rian Johnson delivers an excellent detective story, with complicated twists and no characters being completely clean (Brendan is true anti-hero, as he does some questionable stuff himself). The one slight flaw that its doesn't quite feel like a high school story though it works for the most part. Overall, one of the best and most unique takes on the detective story in recent years.

This is a special movie, and won't necessarily leave you indifferent. The main reason as to way I say this is because Brick feels like a blast from the past, but with a modern high-school setting. It inspires itself a lot from the 1940's and 1950's black-and-white film noirs. The settings, the written, even the heavily inspired noir jazz score. And honestly, considering that they only had a very low-budget to work with, they managed to pull this one off as a decent mystery movie. The problem that I had with Brick is that it's uneven, sometimes some scenes being a little too slow and therefor boring as well. The cinematography is raw enough and realistic, you can definitely tell that they didn't have a lot of money, but it gives the flick a certain visual aesthetic. It's got an intriguing story, but one where not all viewers will understand, which is why I thought that it was a very good idea to have the main character elaborate the whole story, at the very end. And speaking of characters, it is hard to note speak of Brick without mentioning the memorable and strong lead performance by a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt, he is quite good in there. I cant tell that this film was made with passion for the art. I'd say that it features a touch of absurdism, in the sense that not many characters tend to show their emotions, like Gordon-Levitt's character, despite the complicated and tragic story that they've been through. I can overall say that this was a good enough homage to film noirs, it's a unique blend, and I bet that fans of the genre will love it! Recommended !!