It's been a while since I wrote one of my crappy movie reviews, but I'm pretty you never really forget; sure it's just like riding a horse. No wait, that's if I fall, I'm supposed to get right back in the saddle. It's a bike that you never forget out to ride. I certainly wouldn't forget; my first bike riding experience ended with 4 stitches in my bottom lip and a couple of freaked out nurses wondering where a small kid can summon such strength trying to escape the man with the needle and thread.

I had been hearing some chatter about this movie Brick, which was said to be a novel take on the classic American detective story. I've read most of everything Dashielle Hammet ever wrote, and Raymond Chandler ain't too shabby, either, so this sounded right up my alley. Some of the best movies of the 40's, hell, of all time, were detective movies. I've watched The Maltese Falcon almost as many times as I've watched the Millennium Falcon. Han Solo wishes he was as bad ass and cold hearted as Sam Spade. Spouting lines like "When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it"and "People lose teeth talking like that. If you want to hang around, you'll be polite," you know he doesn't give a crap. The cynical tough guy with reflexes almost as quick as his witty banter are a staple in these types of movies, and when done right, are a joy to watch. The only problem is, the era of a fedora wearing gumshoe with a bottle of bourbon in his desk are as dead and buried as the WWII generation. You're much more likely to see a fuzzed face, doe eyed, male model that needs a huge shot of testosterone up on the movie screen than you are to see a man that actually looks and acts like a man. With this being the facts of the new millennium, a change of scenery seems fairly appropriate for a modern day detective story.

Brick is your standard murder mystery set within the dark, underbelly of a world infested with violence and drugs. However, in what is actually a fairly clever twist, the world is an average high school. The hero is a cagey loner, who makes it is personal mission to solve the murder of the ex-girlfriend that he still pines for, but had entered a different, more dangerous, high school clique. The setting works for the story; just glancing at the headlines, you can tell high schools are far more dangerous than past generations. With children losing their innocence much earlier and a society that tries to pretend they're little adults, it's certainly believable.

What isn't believable and where the movie makes a serious error, is transporting the machine gun patter and slang of the 40s and putting it into the mouths of these high school kids. Everyone in this film talks and acts as though they're actually in some film noir, black and white drama instead of standing around the parking lot of a generic, suburban, grocery store. Had the screenplay done an actual updating, such as was done with Jane Austen's Emma and placing it in a modern day high school in the film Clueless, this one feels as though the writer originally wrote a standard 40's detective yarn after reading The Long Goodbye, but as an experiment decided to just shoehorn it into the mouths of teens instead. While the dialogue is actually quite good, it feels completely wrong in the setting. This was the same reaction I had to the remake of Romeo and Juliet with DiCaprio where they kept the original Shakespearean dialogue in modern day Miami. It's gimmicky and it makes you aware of it the entire time you're watching. I can't lose myself in the fantasy of a movie if it's always yelling at me, "Look how clever I am!"

It might have worked better if it was more tongue in cheek like Clueless, but the movie seems to be played straight. This sometimes leads to absurd dialogue like when our hardboiled detective senior says to his principal, "No more of these informal chats! If you have a disciplinary issue with me, write me up or suspend me and I'll see you at the Parent-Teacher conference."

The protagonist, Brendan Frye, played by the long haired kid from the obnoxious sitcom Third Rock from the Sun, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, is well cast in the movie. He still looks young enough to be a teenager, but he's got enough acting chops to pull off the type of ridiculous dialogue they have him spouting off in every scene. In fact, his performance is the one thing that keeps this movie from completely falling apart from it's own inherent silliness.

This movie is reminiscent of another experiment at film noir detective stories made a few years ago, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, starring Robert Downey, Jr. That one attempted to transport the whole gumshoe concept into the modern day, but with far more self awareness. That movie fell apart once it stopped taking it self seriously at all and devolved into a surreal parody where they gave up even trying to make sense. These two movies are at two different ends of the spectrum; one took itself way too seriously, the other, not seriously enough. While both were entertaining, they're both failures as far as producing a good movie. Still, you have to appreciate when a movie tries to tell a unique story. I can only watch so many movies about superhero origins or workaholic beautiful women who haven't met the right guy with hilarity ensuing.

Unless you're a fan of detective films, I wouldn't recommend Brick. But, as I am a fan, I have to say I was entertained. I just spent too much of the movie thinking of ways to change it than actually enjoying the story.

6.5/10