Brick

I expected great things of Brick. I enjoyed the trailers, and it received pretty good reviews. So I bought the DVD without having seen it.

It's a story of drugs, murder, and a murder investigation. There's a drug lord, his hired muscle, a detective, his loyal sidekick, and a femme fatale. It's a film noir. And it's set in a modern-day American high school. Yes, they've taken those two staples of US cinema and mixed them together into one great concept.

So, does it work?

Well, on a certain level it does. It's surprising just how well, in fact. But there are some incongruities. The scene in the assistant vice-principal's office didn't play out for me. It just seemed too forced.

And the age of the actors also hindered my viewing pleasure. Fans of gritty cop show The Shield will recognize Brian White, who played Tavon in season 3. White was born in 1973. What the fuck is he doing playing a high-school student in 2005, age 32?! The lead role of Brendan is played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, age 24; and Laura is played by Heroes star Laura Zehetner, also 24 years old. Come on, let's get real and cast some people who look like they could actually be schoolkids!

What could have been a great and original film turned into an interesting but flawed experiment in mixing genres. And the tale got so convoluted that it was even necessary to have Brendan tell the viewers exactly what the fuck happened! A shame...

Scored
Acting: 13
Story: 13
Direction: 14
Enjoyment: 14
Involvement: 15
Total: 69

Quo Vadis, Baby?

To be honest, it's a while now since I watched Quo Vadis, Baby?, and it hasn't really stayed with me at all. Much of the time, if I don't write a review straightaway, it's because I was uninspired. That's not always the case, but often.

Essentially, this is a film about a female private detective trying to track down who killed her sister some years earlier. What prompts her to do this after 16 years is the arrival of hours and hours of video-diary type material made by her sister that arrives on her desk one day.

The plot leads her to pay particular interest in her sister's last lover...

While watching this film, I was half enjoying it, but it was rather dull, and even though it didn't always go where you thought it would, it still had a sense of the obvious about it, the mundane, the retrodden.

It was all right, but not much more than that, with a couple of half-decent bits here and there.

The scores
Acting: 13
Story: 13
Direction: 13
Enjoyment: 12
Involvement: 12
Total: 63