High School Noir: Crime is an Extracurricular Activity

Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) makes a secret phone call in 'Brick' (2005).

I
t's remarkable how well life at a typical suburban high school can resemble the plot of a classic film noir. That's the conceit behind "Brick," the 2005 Rian Johnson feature he wrote and directed. 

High school outsider Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) searches for his missing girlfriend, Emily (Emilie de Ravin), and delves into the sordid teenage underworld of suburban California drug traffickers, rich spoiled brats and hoodlums hardened far beyond their years. 

The leader of the local gang of toughs, The Pin (Lukas Haas), balances his life of crime and life at home with mother — she serves juice to her son's visitors who arrive for a gang sit-down. 

The film's dialog is a patois of 1930s and '40s crime movie jargon, updated with some modern-day hipster-speak. It's at first a little difficult to accept a bunch of high schoolers talking like Mike Hammer, but the odd juxtaposition of youths and vintage wise-guy talk starts to sound natural after a while. 

Actually, it might be an oversimplification likening "Brick"to Spillane novels. The movie's dialog is more like the poetic flights that Clifford Odets put in the mouths of characters in 1957's "Sweet Smell of Success." Those words and sentences have little to do with the way people really talk, but they're positively musical once your ear becomes accustomed to the film's idiosyncrasies.

The thrill of "Brick" is its absolute adherence to the conventions of film noir. In a meeting between Brendan and Assistant Vice Principal Trueman (Richard Roundtree), snappy, clipped dialog and dramatic understatement rule the day. Brendan gets called on the carpet for cutting class, and the exchange between student and administrator is classic noir-speak. It's like Bogart facing off with a crusty D.A. who insists that the private eye come across with information. And, of course, Bogie gives him defiant, wise-guy answers. 

Brendan fills the role of the classic noir protagonist. He's looking for answers in a world where it seems no one else is even aware of the questions. Relationships here are fraught with betrayal, and it takes a monumental effort on our hero's part to at last cut through the ever-present subterfuge and discover the truth. 

We're with him the whole way. And even if the structure and dialog seem familiar, "Brick" does the incredible job of breathing new life into a film style that predates the cast and director's parents.