Brick

Director: Rian Johnson
Year Released: 2005
Rating: 1.5

Chinatown improbably gets transported to teen-dominated California, where high schoolers talk like Dashiell Hammett characters, deal drugs and act like thugs (Mom and Dad have since left town, I imagine). Even though I had trouble 'buying' the gimmick - like Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, it's not easy accepting the postmodern-ness of it - this is surely not the fault of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, whose character gets punched, kicked, stepped on, knifed, chased after and punched some more - Jesus Christ suffered less - in a search for the individual(s) who contributed to the death of a former girlfriend. The direction is embellished but self-assured, but it all could have used a little more humor - the seriousness becomes heavy after a while, just like a ...