Brick: B+

Nathan Johson instills a suspenseful tone and Steve Yeldin gives a photographic beauty to this clever and confident feature debut by writer-director Rian Johson. Brenden Fry (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a loner, an observer of shrewd intelligence, and most recently a gumshoe out to find his ex-girlfriend after he recieves her SOS phone call. Soon she is dead and Brenden enlists his only friend "The Brain"(Matt O'Leary), a kid who sits perpetually by a brick wall and sees and knows everyone, to be his legman. Brenden is gonna shake things up...starting with his high-school's drug ring, led by femme fatale Laura (Noah Zehetner, stealing every scene she's in) and ending with the local crime-boss/dope-runner "The Pin" (Lukas Haas).

The dialouge is like something straight out of a Dashiel Hammett novel and is suprisingly sharp, the characters right out of something like "The Maltese Falcon". The plot is familiar and slightly predictable, with a few suprising twists here and there. The young cast impresses, especially Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Noah Zehetner. I am quite looking forward to Rian Johson's next picture. As someone once said about...well...someone else: "Your good. Very good."