Teenagers channel 1940s detective films
“Brick,” a neo-noir thriller from writer/director Rian Johnson (“Star Wars: The Last Jedi”), takes place in a present-day California high school but is written in the style of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Teenagers use colloquialisms of the late 1940s through 1950s like “take a powder,” “I’ve just shaken the tree; let’s see what falls,” “keep your specs peeled,” “shamus” and “kablooey.” The highly stylized narrative opens with the image of a dead girl at the mouth of a tunnel followed by the title “Two Days Earlier” and an extended flashback, a device reminiscent of William Holden’s body floating in a swimming pool in “Sunset Boulevard” and narrating his own tale.<br /><br />Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt (“The Lookout,” “Looper”) is a loner who still has feelings for his ex-girlfriend Emily (Emilie de Ravin), who dumped him for the hip, druggie crowd that Brendan hates. Emily hasn’t been seen for days, so when Brendan gets a phone call from her that sounds frightened and is quickly cut off, he starts to ask questions. Assisted by his buddy Brain (Matt O’Leary), Brendan learns that Emily became involved in a plot to steal a brick of pure heroin from a local dealer called the Pin (Lukas Haas, “Witness”).<br /><br />Writer/director Johnson turns 1940s pulp characters into youngsters and the actors play their roles dead seriously. There’s violence, mostly in the form of brutal fist fights. The hard-boiled style becomes apparent almost immediately, as actors speak in idioms their grandparents would have used. This style is not an attempt to be campy or cute or to elicit laughs. The mood is consistently somber as the murder mystery plays out, with colorful characters, red herrings, and Brendan’s determined detective venturing into dangerous territory to find out the truth about Emily.<br /><br />Gordon-Levitt never cracks a smile, suggesting Bogart in “The Maltese Falcon.” His Brendan can handle himself physically, belying his thin frame and soft features, long hair and glasses. In one scene, he stands up to a muscle-bound football player, taunting him about his limited vocabulary and using surprise and speed to compensate for his smaller size. He ends up badly beaten but still has held his own. Making Brendan both cool and destined for doom, Gordon-Levitt plays him on a single note, which becomes tiresome. In moments when his character should express anger or frustration, he is stone-faced. Even Bogart showed emotion from time to time.<br /><br />“Brick” is certainly an original, with its hipster dialogue, incongruous setting, sinister goings-on in high school, near absence of adults, and teenage femmes fatale. This is a world ordered by its own internal logic. As with classic detective fiction, there are many characters, complex relationships, questionable motives, suspicious behaviors, and important clues. First-time director Johnson presents an aggressively stylized twist-filled melodrama that turns the mundane setting of high school into a simmering den of danger and violence.<br /><br />Bonus materials on the Blu-ray release include an audio commentary with writer/director Rian Johnson and key cast and crew members; 8 deleted and extended scenes; “The Inside Track: Casting the Roles of Laura and Dode;” and theatrical trailers.
The movie title "Brick (Special Edition) [Blu-ray]," available on Movies & TV, has received an average rating of 4.3 from 1455 reviewers. 
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The additional details include the following in key-value format :
 {"Genre": "Action & Adventure", "Format": "NTSC, Subtitled, Anamorphic", "Contributor": "Lukas Haas, Richard Roundtree, Joseph Gordon_Levitt", "Language": "English", "Runtime": "1 hour and 50 minutes", "MPAA rating": "R (Restricted)", "Product Dimensions": "0.7 x 7.5 x 5.4 inches; 2.47 Ounces", "Media Format": "NTSC, Subtitled, Anamorphic", "Run time": "1 hour and 50 minutes", "Release date": "January 7, 2020", "Actors": "Joseph Gordon_Levitt, Lukas Haas, Richard Roundtree", "Studio": "KL Studio Classics", "Country of Origin": "USA", "Number of discs": "1"}

Here is a brief synopsis of the title : Brendan Frye (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, The Lookout, Looper) is a high school loner, someone who knows all the angles but has chosen to stay on the outside. When the girl he loves turns up dead, he is determined to find the “who” and “why” and plunges into the dark and dangerous social strata of rich girl Laura (Nora Zehetner, Beneath), intimidating Tugger (Noah Fleiss, Joe the King), drug-addled Dode (Noah Segan, Deadgirl), seductive Kara (Meagan Good, D.E.B.S.), and the ominous Pin (Lukas Haas, Witness). But who can he really trust? These are the ingredients of Brick, a gritty and provocative thriller co-starring Richard Roundtree (Shaft). Rian Johnson (Looper, Star Wars: The Last Jedi) wrote and directed this clever and twist-filled neo-noir that wowed audiences and critics alike..