Today on Binge Safari, we’re ditching our lockers for shadows, skipping class to chase corpses, and plunging into a modern noir so moody you’ll swear it was lit by a cigarette. We’re talking Brick—Rian Johnson’s 2005 debut film that took high school tropes, slammed them into a Dashiell Hammett blender, and created a cult classic.
Now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Brick is gritty, cryptic, and absolutely brilliant. Our trench-coated duo Ricky the Reel Raccoon and Fifi the Film Frenchie are here to walk the mean halls and sniff out every stylish clue.
Ricky’s Review – A Raccoon With a Nose for Trouble
Alright, I’ve seen a lot of high school movies. Detentions. Prom disasters. One time I got stuck in a vending machine during Clueless. But Brick? This is something else. This is a high school crime thriller dressed in blood, bruises, and 1940s slang, and it absolutely rocks my striped little world.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Brendan, a loner with a busted heart and a permanent squint. When his ex-girlfriend ends up dead in a storm drain, he dives headfirst into a suburban underworld of drug rings, femme fatales, and one guy named The Pin who wears a cape and lives with his mom. You can’t make this up.
The dialogue? Pure noir gold. These kids talk like Bogart on a caffeine drip. “I’ve got all five senses and I slept last night—that puts me six up on the lot of you.” WHAT?! Genius. I rewound that five times and wrote it on a napkin.
But this ain’t style without substance. The pacing is tight. The stakes feel real. When Brendan gets beat up (and he really gets beat up), you feel every punch. He’s not a superhero—he’s a scrawny teen fueled by grief and instant noodles.
Rian Johnson directs the hell out of this thing. You’d never know it was his first movie. Long tracking shots. Weird angles. The shadows practically growl. This isn’t a student film—it’s a noir banger in a hoodie.
🗑️ Ricky’s Rating: 5 Trash Cans
A gritty gem. It’s like if Sherlock Holmes got expelled and started solving murders behind the gym.
Fifi’s Review – The Snarky Cinephile Solves the Case in Heels
Darling, Brick is what happens when someone takes film noir out for espresso and dresses it in thrift-store chic. It’s stylish, savage, and smarter than half the people at your alumni reunion.
Let’s start with Nora Zehetner, who slinks through this film as Laura, the ambiguous ingénue with the thousand-yard stare and vocabulary made of velvet daggers. She doesn’t just flirt—she disorients. Watching her and Brendan circle each other is like watching a chess match in a thunderstorm.
And while the performances are strong across the board, it’s the aesthetic control that sends me. The muted color palette. The sharp shadows. The eerie silences that stretch just long enough to make you sweat. This film knows what it’s doing.
What I adore most is that Brick refuses to dumb itself down. The slang is thick. The plot is knotty. If you miss a line, tough luck—catch up or get left behind with the other corpses in the culvert.
And the score? Minimal but haunting. The work of composer Nathan Johnson (yes, Rian’s cousin—keep it in the family, boys). It creeps under your skin like guilt.
This isn’t homage—it’s reinvention. Johnson took a dying genre, put it in a schoolyard, and made it strut again. And somehow, it still feels totally sincere.
🐾 Fifi’s Rating: 5 Paw Prints
A moody, marvelous noir that makes teenage heartbreak look cinematic. Rian Johnson, you had me at “brick.”
Final Thoughts – The High School Noir We Deserved
Brick may be set in suburbia, but it walks and talks like a noir heavyweight. Ricky and Fifi agree: it’s dark, daring, and absolutely unforgettable.
📢 Stream Brick now on Amazon Prime Video, and join us next time on Binge Safari, where the plot thickens, the suspects multiply, and the reviews always hit hard.
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