Brick
Focus Features | Release Date: March 31, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
72
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 34 Critic Reviews
Positive:
30
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Manages to be visually arresting, packed with geeky allusions to everything from Raymond Chandler to "Blue Velvet." Read full review
91
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
A Big Sleep with underage bozos, a Maltese Falcon where the stuff that dreams are made of rests in the lockers of a well-worn high school, Brick is a remarkable oddity, audacious and engaging. Read full review
90
Film ThreatJeremy Mathews
With brilliant dialogue out of the 1940s and graceful visuals that add depth to the dark comedy, Johnson debuts with a smart, self-assured feature that portrays adolescence like no other film has. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Brick is Bogart goes to high school, in other words, but that thumbnail description doesn't begin to convey the lasting pleasures of Rian Johnson's directorial debut. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Johnson also grabs hold of a fundamental truth and seduces us with it: The schoolyard can be the noirest burg of all. Read full review
83
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
It's reminiscent of David Lynch, who is a master at mixing the ghastly and the risible. Brick would be better with a bit more Lynch in its soul, but Johnson is his own man, and I look forward to what he comes up with next. Read full review
80
The New YorkerDavid Denby
All in all, this twerpy little movie is one of the most entertaining pictures to be released so far this year. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDuane Byrge
The mean streets don't get any nastier than the high school parking lots in this cool-crafted mystery. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
Johnson has taken a well-worn, much-revised genre, adapted to what's become a clichéd setting and transcended both in the process. Read full review
80
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
Brick doesn't work 100 percent of the time, but it's a striking achievement, beautifully shot, often hilarious and occasionally moving. Read full review
80
EmpireDamon Wise
With a superb lead turn by rising star Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rian Johnson’s debut is a smart, original neo-noir that works as an ingenious mindgame as well as a slick Hollywood calling card. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
"Sensational" is the word for Joseph Gordon-Levitt (equally striking in Mysterious Skin), who stars as Brendan, the teen outsider who becomes a budding Bogart. Read full review
75
New York PostLou Lumenick
It's Gordon-Levitt's pitch-perfect work that makes Brick a hardboiled treat. Read full review
75
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
First-time writer-director Rian Johnson's gimmick is that his SoCal teens talk like film-noir yeggs and dames, slinging hard-boiled shade and spitting out terse, rat-a-tat dialogue peppered with slang that was yesterday's news 40 years before they were born. But the result is, against all odds, marvelously entertaining. Read full review
75
PremiereEthan Alter
It takes a good fifteen minutes to fully adjust to the screenplay's rhythms, but once you do, the dialogue is a lot of fun to listen to. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
This movie leaves me looking forward to the director's next film; we can say of Rian Johnson, as somebody once said about a dame named Brigid O'Shaughnessy, "You're good. You're very good." Read full review
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
The concept is clever and Johnson's brisk editing, dynamic camerawork and snazzy transitions has fun with it all. It makes for an inspired time-warped teenage film noir. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleNeva Chonin
A weird and near-perfect polyglot of indie art film and noir mystery. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Brick is kinda brilliant and kinda demented, and you love it for the former far more than you hold the latter against it. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Mainly, it's a clever gimmick, cleverly wrought, offering further evidence that you can dress up the student body in all manner of garb for all types of genres. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
Writer-director Rian Johnson gives the usual teen angst an entertaining kick. But the joke wears off, and what's left is as convoluted and monotonous as any conventional hard-boiled mystery. Read full review
70
VarietyTodd McCarthy
The story, while derivative, isn't half bad, and the picture gains in finesse and confidence to the point where Johnson more or less pulls off his peril-fraught exercise. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
It's worth seeing for the tightly coiled plot, well-realized characters, and novel take on rapacious teen culture. Read full review
70
Village VoiceMichael Atkinson
The hair may thin considerably under Brick's hat after a while, and Hammett redone remains Hammett half done, but while the plates are in the air, it's a spectacle of nerve. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
Johnson pulls us into his world and keeps things oddly plausible, despite the intense stylization Read full review
70
Washington PostDesson Thomson
Like a good campfire storyteller, writer-director Rian Johnson knows how to fuse the amusing and the edgy. And, in Brendan, he has created an endearing character. Read full review
70
SlateTroy Patterson
Like the best noirs, Brick is a triumph of attitude, and there's no arguing that its brand of deadpan cool is precisely unique. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Gordon-Levitt already proved in last year's "Mysterious Skin" his captivating command as a dramatic actor; with Brick he further demonstrates his remarkable dexterity and range. Read full review
63
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Johnson combines the elements of classic 1940s film noir and "Rebel Without a Cause"-style teen angst in a movie that is as phony as it is ambitious. It's an A+ film school exercise with zero emotional or social impact. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldPeter Debruge
This is neither the noir world of old '40s movies, of which he's clearly fond, nor something new and original enough to fit the concept. Instead, it feels like a blueprint for someone else to figure out. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Has the inherent limits of all movies that feed on movies, rather than life -- it's original, yet it's not.
50
The New York TimesStephen Holden
It's all so seamy, sordid, lurid and shocking! And dull, despite a noirish gloss of wide-angle cinematography and a jaundiced, smoggy color scheme. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneAllison Benedikt
Challenging to follow, at best. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Alas, Brick, from writer-director Rian Johnson, isn't as clever as its conceit. Read full review
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