My Review: Brick (8/10)

"Whatever befalls you I'll deal with. Just tell me about the trouble with the brick, the pin."

Brick is writer and director, Rian Johnson's, feature debut which he delivered with great craftsmanship and an original and unique vision. Despite having seen Looper first, I think Brick is still Johnson's best film and most impressive one. It has a very original and smart concept which I haven't seen played out so well an any other film. Brick has all the classic noir conventions of films from the 30's like The Maltese Falcon, but it is set in a very different and drastic manner. So in a way Brick has a similar mood and atmosphere of classic film noir, but by setting the film in a modern day South Cal High School it shares elements with traditional teen dramas. The combination of these two very different genres makes for a very innovative and provocative film. The characters and dialogues in this film are very stylized and it does require the audience to pay close attention in order to understand what is going on, but if you put effort into following it closely you will be rewarded. Brick is a very cool movie that could have gone terribly wrong due to the genre mashups, but thanks to some great performances and interesting dark twists it really is an outstanding debut. 

Brick is a classic detective story that takes place in a local High School where a teenage loner named Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) sets out to solve a crime involving the murder of his ex girlfriend, Emily (Emilie de Ravin). A few months after breaking up with him, Emily got involved with some drug dealers at school and Brendan suspects that they are responsible. With the help of the Brain (Matt O'Leary), his information man, Brendan begins following a few leads and infiltrating the high school underworld. His first clue leads him to Laura (Nora Zehetner), who is the femme fatale who he doesn't fully rely on. Eventually he makes his way to meeting the crime ring boss known as The Pin (Lukas Haas) and the muscle of his operation, Tug (Noah Fleiss). Brendan makes his way through these different groups involving gangs, drug dealers, hit-men, and so on, willing to risk his life because he's driven by love and wants to unravel the entire web of corruption in his high school.

Just like there are sub groups in every high school, Johnson takes this concept and mixes it with the known groups in detective and noir film so instead of having jocks and nerds you have drug dealers, femme fatales, rats, crime lords, junkies, and hit-men. In a way the film takes those elements and makes a satire out of them, but surprisingly doing so by giving it a dark turn instead of taking the easy way out and making a comedy out of it. The lingo-heavy language may be difficult and off putting for some, but it really helped set the unique tone of this film which garnered Johnson  a Special Jury prize for Originality of Vision at Sundance. Much of the success of this film can be attributed to the outstanding performance from Joseph Gordon-Levitt who turns in a very convincing performance despite the fact that the dialogue doesn't seem to match up with the setting. Having seen these elements fail many times (for me personally) in several modern Shakespeare adaptations, I was surprised at how well this film actually pulls it off. Brick is a great film offering interesting twists and a thrilling detective story which we become a part of as we try to solve the mystery along with Brendan following each new lead.

My Review: Looper (8/10)

¨ Time travel has not yet been invented. But thirty years from now, it will have been.¨

Looper is a fantastic sci-fi action film about time travel, that writer-director Rian Johnson manages really well by focusing more on the character development than the actual dilemma that may present itself with a subject like this. If you stop to think about the plot too much you might find some holes, but Johnson doesn’t give you too much time to think about those issues, but rather presents several great action scenes mixed with dynamic characters to change the focus of the film. There is one scene where Bruce Willis`s character talks to Joseph Gordon-Levitt and tells him: ¨I don't want to talk about time travel because if we start talking about it then we're going to be here all day talking about it, making diagrams with straws.¨ That is exactly what Johnson wants to avoid in a film like this. He presents the world he creates in such a way that we just have to enjoy it without questioning things. He doesn’t want the viewer to debate if such a world is possible, but rather simply to play along with him in this futuristic world he has created. His main focus was on the characters and the action, and he did a superb job giving the characters a lot of depth. I really had no idea what direction Looper was heading at times, but I really enjoyed the originality of it. The performances were really great as well. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a young Bruce Willis to perfection, mimicking his mannerisms all too well. He really steals the show here, although the computer effects on his face to make him more Willis-like physically were a bit distracting for me.

In 2074 time machines will have been invented although there use will be illegal. They are used only by mobsters to get rid of the people they want eliminated. These mobsters send these people blindfolded thirty years back in the past (2044) where killers named ¨loopers¨ await for them to kill them. Although time machines haven’t been invented in 2044 these loopers are hired by one of the mobsters from the future named Abe (Jeff Daniels) who has gone back to live in the past and assure the loopers do their job. The loopers also know that if the mob finds one of them in the future (2074) they will send them back and have them killed to close the loop. It is sort of like a retirement plan because the looper is guaranteed he will live for 30 years and will get paid really well. One of these loopers is Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who is young and always delivers despite being a junkie. He has a romantic relationship with Suzie (Piper Perabo), a hooker, and his best friend is also a looper, Seth (Paul Dano). When Seth isn’t able to close the loop and kill his old self, Abe goes looking for him and kills him. Joe knows what he has to do when his old self is called, but fails to close the loop as well when old Joe (Bruce Willis) knocks him out. Thus the race begins to find his old self and kill him before Abe and his men find him. Old Joe on the other hand wants to find a key target who in the future will be responsible for the death of his loved one in order to prevent her loss. The entire plot becomes more and more complicated as we move on, because like Abe says ¨This time travel crap, just fries your brain like an egg, ¨ but it does make for one entertaining movie.

This was Rian Johnson´s third feature film after his successful 2005 debut, Brick, and his follow up The Brothers Bloom. This is probably his most successful film considering the budget he had to work with, and he is making a name for himself by creating these original and character driven films. His stories are really interesting and despite all the action and futuristic scenes he also creates memorable characters. The child actor in this film, Pierce Gagnon, is also really remarkable. He was a delight to watch on screen. Emily Blunt also has an important role in the second half of the movie and delivers as always. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is perhaps one of the most underrated actors of our days. He is excellent in this film, and Bruce Willis well he is simply Bruce Willis, one of the best action stars of out time. The film starts out a bit slow with the introduction, but once Bruce Willis shows up the action begins and the characters begin to develop before our eyes (especially Joseph Gordon-Levitt`s character). This is a unique and original film, and I recommend it.

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