Movie Moment- Brick (2005)

I seem to be on a Joseph Gordon-Levitt kick these days.

Brick stars J G-L as an angry loner highschooler named Brendan who gets a strange phone call from his ex-girlfriend, who is then dead two days later. What follows is the whodunit story with Brendan playing detective within the dark world that his ex-girlfriend was caught up in.

I really wanted to like this movie. The premise is straightforward but has some great twists and at times you really don't know who is trust worthy. The dialogue was sharp, quick (though a little too mumbly at times) and felt like a throwback in some of the slang to detective movies of yore. But the premise of having the murder mystery take place among teens didn't feel credible. While the acting was decent, there were moments that these teens seemed to be acting as if they were 40 or older. I had repeated moments of wondering where any of the parents were. Granted, it was clear that some of the characters were very well off, and could do whatever they wanted, but having no parental presence (either positive or negative) gave the whole flick a 'we're pretending to be grown ups' vibe.

I've decided I need some sort of grading for my movie moments, and for the time being will use 0-10. 0 being the worst movie I've ever seen; 10 being...you get the idea. And yes, it was inspired by the pain scale:)

I give this movie a 5. Anything lower means it didn't hold my attention for whatever reason. This flick just barely did, mainly because I always want to know whodunit.

It wasn't the butler with the candlestick in the library.