Film noir has had its shares of derivations since its heyday during the 1930’s and ’40 with even a neo-noir high happening in the 1990’s thanks to hits like Pulp Fiction, The Usual Suspects and Memento. Now comes Brick, another entry to help uniquely twist and shape the ever-changing genre, this one set in the most unlikely place of all: High School. Writer-Director Rian Johnson makes an audacious debut with this clever, “too-cool-for-school” noir about a student’s murder laced with sharp dialogue spat effortlessly from its characters as if they were razor-sharp hip-hop lyrics.

The film opens not unlike Sunset Boulevard with a corpse face down in the water, only here prone body is a teenage girl named Emily Kostach (Emilie de Ravin, Lost, The Hills Have Eyes), her untimely death hanging like an albatross over her ex-boyfriend Brendan Frye (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, late of 3rd Rock from the Sun and a talent to watch). Brendan is a solemn, quiet-yet-sharp observer and slowly begins to solve his beloved's tragedy by diving into the sordid world of High School politics concerning a local drug king pin (aptly nicknamed The Pin, Lukas Haas, Witness, in his most adult performance to date), a few femme fatales and a violence-prone henchman named Tugger (Noah Fleiss, The Laramie Project) whose unique appearance is nearly as memorable as his anger management issues.

Despite his penchant for getting into brawls, Brendan enlists his best friend and sole confidant The Brain (Matt O'Leary, Havoc) to get the dirt on his enemies. He pieces together the mysterious notes and phone calls plaguing the quest trying to determine what led to Emily’s death and possibly unearth something of his own he’d lost: A conscience.

Filmmaker Johnson has a good eye for quirky visuals, particularly in the brutality of the brawls, using odd speed-up and freeze-frame techniques in his editing of the picture (he also cut the cult 2002 horror film May). He also employs interesting cinematography by Steve Yadlin (Conversations with Other Women) and employs a moody Chinatown-esque score composed by newcomer Nathan Johnson that deftly underscores the shady goings on. Admittedly, while the gimmick of teenagers spouting hard-boiled Maltese Falcon-like dialogue may grow weary to the point of annoyance, it largely works here thanks to the poker faced Gordon-Levitt's. His performance has a world-weary angst coating shadows of unbridled grief so when he finally does allow his feelings to get the best of him the moment is a small devastating wonder.

I do have to wonder, however, if it would have killed Johnson to shoot the movie in black and white. Had he, Brick would have been an instant cult classic.

Film Rating: êêê  (out of 4)