Brick

This glorified student film is only barely elevated by the talented Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Brendan Frye a noir-speaking California high school misfit caught in the violent middle of a drug gang responsible for the death of his ex-girlfriend (Emilie de Ravin). Joseph Gordon-Levitt very nearly makes sense of writer/director Rian Johnson’s knee-jerk Dashiell Hammett barbs of spiky repartee that serve as a narrative one-note samba. "Maybe I'll just sit here and bleed at you" is one of Brendan’s snappy retorts that coincidentally speaks volumes about the writer’s approach at this off-beat and unsatisfying movie. Inferior cinematography strains the already trifling movie.

Rated R. 110 mins. (D+) (One Star)