Brick: A Neo-Noir for the Current generation

Kaitlyn Gardner

Film, Noir, and Novel

December 10, 2017

Brick: A Neo-Noir for the Current Generations

The genre of film Noir is over but the influences are lasting until the modern day. Neo-Noirs are one of the most well known example of Noir’s influence. Neo-noirs can be defined as film which come after the time period which has traditionally defined Noir but embodies similar characteristics in film style, character type, plot and theme. Neo-Noir also talks about more contemporary issues featuring seemingly more relatable scenarios. These films eventually gave rise to new version of modern Noir. The 2005 film Brick, despite the fact the fact that it is set in a modern high school contains the quintessential elements of a film Noir. The plot, characters, themes, and the general mood of the film echo the neo-noirs which we studied in the second half of the semester.

        The plot of the movie, if reimagined into the typical Noir setting, seems like something that popped straight out of a hard-boiled detective novel. At the beginning of the story, Brendan, a high school loner who has purposely removed himself from society, due to his dislike of his peers and perception that they were somehow beneath him, is contacted in a panic by his ex-girlfriend who says she has gotten herself into a troubling situation that she cannot escape from and needs his help. Brendon, who seems to be relatively calm and unbothered by the whole situation, asks what he can do. The angles used in this scene are very important to the dynamics of the film as well; firstly, whenever it is Brendan who speaks of the telephone the camera is at eye level. However, when it is his ex who is on the phone, the camera is shooting a low angle shot. We only get to see Brandon’s end of the conversation but due to the begging tone of his ex the low angles make it seem like she is beging on her knees for his help. This symbolizes the authority within the relationship between the two. As the movie progress his ex is always the one that is need of his help and seems to not be able to outsmart Brendan in any way no matter how much she insists that she does not need his help. After his ex becomes panicked and hangs up on him Brendan is startled by a red car racing by, out of which the driver throws a cigarette. This is one of the first noir symbols that shows up in the film, cigarettes were a staple of the 1940’s Noir as both hard-boiled detectives and hardened criminals were often seen smoking in each of these films. The attention on this film is however, on a symbol on the cigarette itself, a little blue arrow pointing toward the butt end of the cigarette.

        The next day at school Brendan goes around and talks to what seems to be his informant, a boy he calls “the brain”. However, like most main characters of neo-noir, “the brain” says that Brendan has been holding him at an arm's length and has not visited for months. They confer about the situation with Emily for a while and “the brain” lets Brendan know that Emily had made her way all the way from the top of the social food chain to one of the lower ranks with another one of Brendan’s ex-girlfriends-of-a-sort, a goth, theater kid named Kara. Brendan asks “the brain” for Emily’s locker, which he gets, and the Brendan thanks “the brain” for his information before going to search Emily’s locker. In this scene, Brendan begins to operate like the typical Noir detective; he is blunt and straight to the point and seems to hold no affection for Emily even though she is his ex-girlfriend. Throughout the movie he seems to be very much like Detective Spade in the Maltese Falcon or detective JJ Gittes in Chinatown.

        Next, Brendan does what any good detective would do, like Detective JJ Gittes in the neo-noir Chinatown would snoop into his targets personal lives, Brendan goes to snoop in Emily’s locker. In it, he finds her planned with a picture of a drama mask. This leads him to think that Kara must have something to do with Emily’s panicked state. He goes and talks to Kara in what he calls her “home-turf”, the drama room. Kara has a freshman laying his head in her lap and sends him to go run an errand. Kara and Brendan have a quick standoff where they mention there past involvement. Then, Brendan asks about Emily only to have Kara warn him against looking any further into Emily’s situation.

        Kara seems like the femme fatale at the end of the typical neo-noir movies. She is very obviously controlling of the men around her and able to pray on the weak. She shows that she knows that she has sway over men and uses it. She is able to put herself in a position of power and knowledge; she knows that Brendan wants her knowledge in order to understand what has happened to Emily. She is like Amy from the neo-noir Gone Girl, she is very sure of her persuasion over men and is using it to earn herself and favors. She can fill any role that she needs to in order to gain information.

        When Brendan finds his next clue, an invitation to an exclusive party in Kara and Emily’s dressing room, he makes a call to enter the part. For the first time, we make the story’s main femme fatale, Laura. Their first exchange is very short and mysterious; Laura refuses to tell the location of the party to Brendan until he brings up that he has Emily’s invitation. At the party the two meet up and Laura shows interest in his cause. She admits she might have information about Emily’s whereabouts. She gives Brendan a clue in order to find Emily but then she asks him to stay. She leaves for a few minutes but Brendan tails her and sees her meet up with a strange man. This established the typical relationship between the femme fatale and the main character as in neo-noir this relationship is based off of mistrust and anticipation. Each character wants to anticipate the next move of the other character as they know that the other will make a move in order to have power over them and exert their will. In the typical neo-noir the femme fatale and the hard-boiled male will seemingly be working together or with similar interest until the true plan is revealed. Brendan does not trust Laura; he knows that she has his own agenda despite telling him that she is honest with him and on her side. Brendan says several times throughout the film that Laura is a player, dangerous, and has her own agenda. The fact that the femme fatale would have her own interest, which she plays both sides to fulfill, is very typical to film Noir. Many femme fatales are characterized as extremely smart, greedy and deceptive and Laura demonstrates all these qualities by giving Brendan a lead that could get him caught but would benefit her. Laura constantly flirts with Brendan and says things about the possibility of them being together when in fact, she is apparently dating the school drug dealer and former star football player, Brad Bramish.

        The next character introduction is a play on another typical archetype of character in film Noir, the small criminal who acts like he is the big boss. We are introduced to Dode, the leader of the druggies who smoke behind a local cake shop, the name of which being the clue that Laura gave Brendan. Brendan goes and interrogates Dode knowing that he is the only person that is still actively in contact with Emily. Detective Spade and other detectives were known to rough up the people that they were interrogating. This showed how much of a man they were as well as a show of force at how amazing they were. Brendan threatens Dode saying that he doesn’t care about what Emily’s up to; he only wants to hear that she doesn’t need his help from her directly. After this threat he fakes leaving only to trail Dode and see him give something to Emily.

        The next day we see Emily and Brendan interact for the first time. Emily comes to Brendan’s turf, behind the school where he eats lunch. Brendan and Emily sit together before she tells him off and states that he needs to stop looking into her business. Emily is the story’s good girl at this point. She is just an innocent girl who has too big of a heart and gets in trouble. The good girl in neo-noir is the character who is oblivious to the whole plot and never involved. She seems to be under the illusion that those she loves are completely devoid of any fault and accepts their past openly. In this case however, the good girl is in the thick of the plot but trying her best to keep Brendan out of it because she does not believe that he should put himself in danger because of her. There is also insight into their past relationship. We learn that Brendan had teamed up with the police and turned in a former drug dealer who had been involved with Emily. Brendan had stated that wanted to keep her safe however he seemed to trying to control her completely according to Emily. They part after Brendan agrees not meddle, however, like the typical Noir detectives he did not trust Emily and takes her notebook uncovering a slip of paper with a symbol and time. This he shows to Brain and they determine the meaning of the symbol and the fact that it came from further up the drug chain.

        When Brendan goes to the said meeting place he discovers Emily or rather Emily’s body at the meeting place. He thinks fast and hides her body, wanting to find the person who committed the murder without police interference. From this point on Brendan never has another emotional moment remaining totally and completely hard-boiled in his investigation into the death of Emily. He displays his willingness to do whatever to get to the bottom of this case when he confronts Brad Bramish and gets beaten up. He explains to Brain that it was to “shake the tree” and that he wanted to bring out the bigger players. He succeeds; a mysterious college-aged boy, whom he’s never seen before, beats up Brendan. However, he also attracts the wrong attention, the vice-principal whom he worked with for his last deal has caught wind of his fight and tells him he knows there is something going on. This reveals yet another Noir archetype, the law. The vice principal, like other entities of the law that are encountered in Noir films and novels does not want to get his hands dirty, he simply wants to make himself look good. There is also corruption that is shown within the “law” much like typical Noir fashion as the Vice-Principal asks simply if it is something big that Brendan is fighting about and if he can have a fall-guy, another typical Noir term ready. After confirmation that his confrontation was something big he agrees to keep the police out of it for now. We see in Pulp Fiction, those who control the law are criminals and the justice system will not be fulfilling for many and the need for personal revenge in Memento. Both of these are demonstrated when we see that the gang who distributes the drugs are retaliating against those who try to harm their dealers as an eye-for-an-eye policy. The notion of personal justice is the basis for this whole film. Brendan is going after the gang who control Emily and those who are hurting her because he believes the law does not have the ability to do so.   

        After this meeting, Brendan spots some of the real players and is beaten up once again by the mysterious boy, whom he now knows as Tug, the boss’s right hand man. He however demands to be brought to his boss and Tug finally agrees but, not before beating him up and throwing him into his trunk. Brendan once again shows hard-boiled detective traits when he opens the back of the truck to make sure he memorizes the address where the Pin, the distributor who controls the drug trade of the whole town and surrounding area, lives. He knows that Pin has something to do with Emily’s death and convinces him that he needs his service even though the Pin knows that he has been involved with authorities. The Pin the allows him information about the current situation which Emily had been involved in, the Pin had ten bricks of drugs, when Emily was briefly friends with Laura she had become hooked on drugs and two blocks of drugs had gone missing. Then they were both returned that it turned out that one had been replaced with a block that had laundry detergent in it and a hit of it had cause someone from the Pin’s own crew to fall into a comma. The other brick is waiting to be sold in the basement but the Pin doesn’t want to sell it yet as if it is bad it could ruin credibility among his clients.

        The kingpin is the final archetype, which completes the review of film Noir types. The king Pin shows up in many forms, mostly as a head mob boss. Pin shares many features, he dresses in an old style of clothing, in all black, carries a cane, speaks in a formal side of talk. We see an example of the kingpin in Citizen Vince where we witness Vince having to go to the man in charge to fill his debt. The Pin is also very intelligent and seems to have multiple possibilities thought of. The twist is Pin is a college aged kid running his operation from the basement of his Mom’s house. When Brendan and Pin settle their deal they walk upstairs and get breakfast that Pin’s mother is making unaware of her son’s business.

        After the conclusion of this meeting Laura reveals herself to be the Pin’s left hand and chauffeur. In their last meeting together Dode suddenly appears and Pin says he is the one who asked for the meeting. Dode starts ranting about Emily being dead and him knowing who did it. Then Tug unexpectedly shoots Dode and attempts to kill the Pin who shoots at him in return hitting Brendan. Both groups leave and since Brendan has passed out Tug takes him. Brendan must now set up a meeting between two groups. This ending sequence is a very much at tribute to traditional noir and, specifically, the Maltese Falcon and Spade’s mediation of the meeting between the two sides of the Falcon Brigid and Gutman. This meeting ends in much the same way, mutual destruction for both sides with only Brendan coming out alive to reveal what really happened and what the true truth is.

        The truth was that both femme fatales had made their final move and only one had briefly won. Kara, who had been learning everything that had transpired through Dode, used him to make her final move. As one of the small-scale drug dealers she wanted to rise in the rankings but couldn’t do that. So, she used her skills as a femme fatale to try and seduce Dode into helping her topple the Pin and his system. However, she quickly realized that he was in love with Emily and used that to her advantage. In her final confrontation with Brendan she admits she set them up as opposition on purpose hoping both Brendan and Pin were killed so she could take control. She told Dode that Emily was pregnant with his child and that Brendan wanted her to abort it. This inspired Dode to try and rat out Brendan and hopefully get the Pin killed in the crossfire. She ultimately fails because the Pin is still alive and she goes back to being a simple dealer.

        Laura’s final move is more successful. She knew about the tension between Tug and Pin, she knew about the bricks, and most importantly she had Emily’s trust. In the final scene of the movie Brendan embraces Laura and tells her about her plan word for word and about how he wished that it wasn’t true. In fact, he says he could have loved her if it wasn’t true. This most definitely is a tribute to the Maltese Falcon final scene of Brigid and Spade. Brendan finally reveals that her believes she is too dangerous to free and that he turned her into the Vice Principal and police.

        This film fits as the second to last film of the semester. It is a modern film but an obvious tribute to the classic Noirs, especially the Maltese Falcon, Citizen Vince, and Chinatown. The film is in color but because the angles and themes remain the same as demonstrated above it is easy to see the influence that film style left upon the film. I selected this text because its change of setting and modern themes added an element of surprise to the plot where some of the modern Noirs that we watched seemed to be too much rooted in trying to not be a neo-noir. This film is a neo-noir without trying and it seems to pay tribute as a natural part of the story line not a forced reference. This film also shows the modern day issues, such as teenage drug use, very candidly and allows for them to be the main issue of the film not the tribute. This film helps to show the transition of the hard-boiled novels into a modern context and shows that these archetypes are still easily compatible with today’s society.  Finally, I think this text is one of the most natural progressions of story lines with feasible plots within a Noir, which happens to make it seem more realistic. Brick is a film, which should be added to the syllabus with an extra week in this semester, or even without.