Another Brick in the Wall

Knives Out was easily one of the standout mystery films for me in 2019 (more on it for another post, perhaps). But, seeing it also reminded me of Brick, the first film Rian Johnson directed, back in 2005. And just as Knives Out is Johnson's tribute to fair-play mysteries reminiscent of works from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction (GADF) in Britain, Brick draws heavily—for its plot, characterisation and dialogue—from another school of crime fiction that was becoming equally popular on the other side of the Atlantic, roughly around the same period as GADF—the hardboiled mysteries.

But, these are thoughts that emerged much later during my rewatch of Brick. My first impression, funnily enough, was—is that really Joseph Gordon-Levitt? Anyway... 

A mysterious note in his school locker leads high-school student Brendan Frye to a payphone where he receives a call from his ex-girlfriend Emily Kostich. The clearly terrified Emily leaves an almost incoherent plea for help to Brendan, who can only make out four words—"brick", "Tug" and "the Pin". The call abruptly ends just as a black Ford Mustang races past the road, from which someone throws a cigarette with a distinct mark. To find Emily, Brendan enlists the services of his mate Brain, who tells him that Emily had been spotted in the company of "the Ivy-bound, cheerleading elite" Laura Dannon and her boyfriend, Brad Bramish. He also meets another ex, Kara, who helps Brendan get in touch with Laura. Laura in turn directs Brendan to Dode, a small-time drug dealer and Emily's lover.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Brendan Frye in Brick

When Brendan does meet Emily, however, she requests him to forget all about the phone call and to let her be. But Brendan steals Emily's notebook where he finds an enigmatic symbol resembling an 'A' with "midnight" scribbled below it. Finally deducing that the 'A' showed a particular location—more specifically, a drainage tunnel close to the school—Brendan visits the place only to find Emily's corpse. Hiding the body, a distraught but determined Brendan soon discovers what "brick", "Tug" and "the Pin" really mean. "The Pin" is a local drug baron, whose right-hand (hench)man is the muscular "Tug" (who also happened to be another of Emily's romantic interests). They had recently acquired a consignment of ten heroin blocks (or "bricks"), of which they had sold eight successfully. However, the ninth one was found to be adulterated and poisoned, supposedly by Emily, which led to the death of a gang member, while the tenth was yet to be sold. But, with Emily's death, more mysteries have emerged: who killed Emily? And who really contaminated the ninth brick?

Brick isn't your traditional whodunnit, and it would perhaps be wrong to expect a fair-play mystery while watching it. What it does excel in is the atmosphere it creates throughout. Brick oozes noir—no mean feat considering that the entire action is set within a school community. In many ways, it refreshingly introduces an adult, violent genre (whose glory days were in the 1930s) to a new generation by relying on fitting relics from the past (think of the payphones, for instance). Even the way Brendan carries out his sleuthing is so reminiscent of gumshoe detectives in fiction from the same period. And in the way it pans out, Brick probably resembles Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon (the trope of a femme fatale stringing the protagonists along) and Red Harvest (the sheer body count) most closely—indeed, a most distinguished company to be counted amongst.

But Brick is not just a homage to a genre, it is also Johnson's ode to his hometown of San Clemente in southern California, where the film was shot. He cleverly utilises the locales and surroundings to maximum effect for purposes of clueing, foreshadowing and marking out the scenes of action—the intersection of Sarmentoso and Camino del Rio (where the phone booth from the opening moments was located) and the drainage tunnel (astutely referred to by the symbol in Emily's notepad) being cases in point. There's also a certain atmosphere of bleakness that pervades all through the film, the effect of which is heightened by some settings and backdrops—the basement-like darkness of the Pin's lair and the scene on the beach where the Pin bares a vulnerable side to his personality before Brendan against the wan glow of a setting sun clearly illustrate this.

Brendan comes across Emily's body in the A-shaped drainage tunnel

It is, however, very difficult to make sense of the rationale behind the decisions of certain key characters at critical moments that have a lasting effect later on in the film. Which is a real disappointment, truth be told, because it would mean that just for the sake of making it an honest, authentic exploration of the hardboiled genre, certain characters go out of their way and behave in awkward, unnatural ways that will make you wonder—why would X do this in such a situation when they could have easily avoided their fate had they taken an alternate, more commonsensical and equally plausible decision that was available to them at that point?

Roger Ebert, in his review of Brick, points out that "because we can't believe in the characters, we can't care about their fates." I cannot agree more.