Brick

I enjoyed the heck out of BRICK. The movie does so many things right, it's hard not to.

First, we have the location. It's hard to imagine a less threatening, more sterile city than San Clemente, CA. It's the kind of clean-scrubbed, utterly dull town that made me itchy to get out of California. BRICK makes San Clemente feel like the scariest city on Earth, all the more so for its surface sheen of wholesomness.

Second, we have the dialogue. It's a stylized form of speech, a noirish banter that no one would actually use, but which we wish they did. The speech could easily descend into self-parody or throw off the entire picture, but it does just the opposite: it takes us into a parallel world that's familiar enough to be relatable but just different enough to be unsettling.

Fourth, we have the performances. I didn't recognize any of the players, but knew going in that the protagonist is the kid from ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD, all grown up. They were terrific, and not in the terrific-for-kids sense. The cast took to the stylized dialogue and fanciful situation and played it dead straight, giving the proceedings a tension and danger that even one wink would've have dissipated.

Fifth, we have the music. IMDB credits Nathan Johnson and Larry Seymour with the score, and they do a masterful job here. The music, like the dialogue, isn't normal. It fits its milieu, however, keeping us off-balance and tense. While it did call attention to itself, it did so in the most positive way, making me seriously consider purchasing a score for the first time in a very long time.

Rian Johnson, a first-time filmmaker, did BRICK on a shoestring and edited it with his home computer. With a debut like this, I can't wait to see what this guy can do with a little studio money behind him.

What a treat.