Brick

04/07/2006

So, what does film noir mean to you?

To me, it means a Raymond Chandler evening. A gumshoe detective- down on his luck in the city of angels of our dreams, dames to kill for, questionable insider tips, shadows and light and the smell of a cigarette mixing with the smoke coming out of a recently fired revolver. To me, film noir is Philip Marlowe, Marv from the Sin City books and Tracer Bullet from the Calvin & Hobbes strips.

Good noir tales all tale the same story. A poor schmuck trying to catch the bad guy, no matter the odds- which are always against him.

Which leads me to the movie Brick. If you’ve seen any film noir or read any of the Chandler, Sam Spade, Sin City books- you know the story. You’ve seen it plenty of times. Yes- it’s set in high school…Veronica Mars does the same thing- but this embraces its roots down to the bone. It replaces the archetypes of noir with the archetypes of noir- the principal being the law, the beauty queen insider etc…and tells the tale of a shamus only looking for the ones responsible for the death of the only girl he ever loved. The tale twists and turns and delves into other tales but in the end only one thing matters to this shamus: Who did it?

Plenty of reviews of this movie out there…read them if you want. It’s better if you actually see it.

5 stars.

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