Brick
I thought I recognised something here other than the Donnie Darko comparisons I’ve read about elsewhere (seriously, I don’t get the comparison – United States of Leland was a hundred times closer and even that wasn’t close to DD, lol), and finally I found out that the director Rian Johnson edited May, so along with the presence of Joseph Gordon-Levitt (could I be more envious of how far someone my age has come over the past decade? but I love him all the same) ... I really wanted to love this.
This is the best film noir since L.A. Confidential. But I have to question its contemporary setting. It feels constantly far to much like ‘The O.C.’, or something like Robert Rodriguez’s The Faculty, than anything more classical it’s trying to emulate. Part of me wants to give it the benefit of the doubt, a few more viewings before I make up my mind, and maybe I will; but a bigger part of me tells me it won’t be worth the effort; that I got it, there’s nothing more to see, and it’s just not very good or interesting as it pretends. Gordon-Levitt is great, though, kept reminding me of Dustin Hoffmann in Straw Dogs for some reason, and there are some really interesting camera moves etc. But overall a disappointment.