--- title: "Brick: the reviews" canonical: "https://film.one/film/brick/reviews" title_page: "https://film.one/film/brick" critics_score: 79 critics_reviews: 11 licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Brick (2006): what the critics said Critics' score 79 from 11 reviews: 9 positive, 2 mixed, 0 negative. Most critics respond warmly to Brick’s transfer of hard-boiled detective fiction to high-school life, praising Rian Johnson’s commitment to treating the unlikely combination seriously. The invented slang, dense plotting and everyday suburban settings draw particular approval for making familiar noir conventions feel strange again. Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s restrained lead performance is a recurring strength, grounding dialogue that could easily become a joke. Several reviews also find convincing adolescent anxiety and hurt beneath the elaborate detective story. The main division is over how much feeling survives all that cleverness. Even favourable reviews acknowledge that the rapid dialogue and convoluted mystery can be difficult to follow, while some find the characters too contrived to care about. The New York Times finds the concept ambitious but dull in practice; Slant Magazine sees detailed craftsmanship without sufficient emotional or social substance. The spread is substantial: admirers find the stylisation revealing, while dissenters see little beyond an ingenious exercise. ## RogerEbert.com — Roger Ebert Rating 4/4. 6 April 2006. Ebert praises the film's straight-faced transposition of classic hard-boiled detective style and dialogue to a contemporary high school setting. He highlights the director's commitment to the concept and the effective atmosphere and archetypes. [Read the review](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/brick-2006) ## The AV Club — Scott Tobias Rating A-. 29 March 2006. Johnson's precocious debut cleverly merges Dashiell Hammett-style detective fiction and invented hard-boiled slang with contemporary high-school life and adolescent angst, anchored by Joseph Gordon-Levitt's strong lead performance. The low-budget, visually arresting result is a densely plotted, inventive genre hybrid that rewards repeat viewings despite some film-school exercise qualities. [Read the review](https://www.avclub.com/brick-1798201586) ## The New Yorker — David Denby Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 27 March 2006. Denby calls the low-budget film rapturous and one of the most entertaining releases of the year, praising its internal logic, funny moments, and real emotions amid the noir pastiche. He singles out the clever updating of Hammett-style dialogue and plotting to sunny suburban high school life. [Read the review](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/04/03/tobacco-and-drugs) ## Empire — Damon Wise Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 28 April 2006. The critic praises Rian Johnson's debut as one of the most original and entertaining films of the year so far, a smart neo-noir that works as an ingenious mindgame. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's lead performance is singled out as a major strength amid the film's stylized dialogue and convoluted mystery. [Read the review](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/brick-review/) ## Los Angeles Times — Carina Chocano Fi1m's normalised score 80/100 (inferred from the text). 31 March 2006. Chocano finds the debut witty and assured, transcending both the noir genre and high-school setting with sly knowingness and understated emotion. She praises Joseph Gordon-Levitt's intelligent, grounded performance as the brooding loner detective. [Read the review](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-mar-31-et-brick31-story.html) ## Variety Fi1m's normalised score 60/100 (inferred from the text). 28 January 2005. Festival review. The review describes the film as a stunt that puts hard-boiled vernacular into teens' mouths with moderately tasty results, noting the story is derivative but gains finesse; it praises Gordon-Levitt's handling of the dialogue. [Read the review](https://variety.com/2005/film/markets-festivals/brick-1200528374/) ## The New York Times — Stephen Holden Fi1m's normalised score 50/100 (inferred from the text). 31 March 2006. Holden finds the high-school noir concept attention-grabbing but ultimately dull despite its stylish gloss and twisty plot borrowed from Hammett. He notes its raw ambition stands out among teen dramas. [Read the review](https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/movies/joseph-gordonlevitt-is-a-teenage-bogart-at-noir-high-in-brick.html) ## Screen Daily 7 February 2005. Festival review. An exciting, shrewd and intense debut that takes its noir high-school premise seriously in all the right places, creating a meticulously wrought and convincingly convoluted whodunit. It praises the tonal balance, the central performance by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and the creation of surreal dramatic tension. [Read the review](https://www.screendaily.com/brick/4021878.article) ## Sight and Sound — Hannah McGill The film is a striking debut that uses hard-boiled noir conventions to capture the hermetic intensity of high-school society. It borrows not just style cues but a sense of obsessiveness and social breakdown as a metaphor for adolescent experience. [Read the review](http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/3239) ## Slant Magazine — Ed Gonzalez 15 January 2006. Festival review. The film is an obsessively detailed but hollow transposition of noir tropes and jargon to a high-school setting that fails to reinvent the genre or add moral or social weight. It builds an intricate visual and aural contraption whose cleverness ultimately yields little beyond surface ingenuity. [Read the review](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/brick/) ## The Guardian 12 May 2006. The critic describes the film as a bizarre and ingenious neo-noir with crackling dialogue and consistent style set in a high school, but notes it is difficult to care about the contrived characters and that it is more a super-smart experiment in style than fully satisfying. [Read the review](https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2006/may/12/1) ## The Telegraph 30 April 2006. The critic calls Brick a wildly original film noir with schoolchildren as private eye, gangsters and femme fatale, praising its exhilarating originality despite plot complexity and hard-to-follow dialogue. [Read the review](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3652004/Drugsy-Malone.html) ## Time Out — Ben Walters 8 May 2006. A patter-heavy gumshoe procedural set in high school that succeeds through heightened plotting, dialogue and straight-faced engagement with violence. It is most enjoyable when teetering on the brink of ridiculousness, with strong praise for Joseph Gordon-Levitt's understated lead performance and the film's use of sound and everyday settings for unease. [Read the review](https://www.timeout.com/movies/brick-1) ## Eye for Film — Anton Bitel Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 11 May 2006. Rian Johnson's debut cleverly fuses film noir with the high-school movie to create a hybrid that transcends both genres while remaining true to their conventions. The critic praises the witty, convoluted plotting and the way the film exposes the lethal complications of adolescent life through stylized artificiality. [Read the review](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/brick-film-review-by-anton-bitel) ## Paste — Steve Dollar Fi1m's normalised score 80/100 (inferred from the text). 7 June 2006. Johnson's crackling debut shakes up the noir genre with a high-school setting while indulging familiarity with it. The jittery editing, mannered dialogue, and abstract score sustain tension and deliver a left-field surprise worth the effort. [Read the review](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/brick) ## The Skinny — Keir Hind Rating ★★★★. 15 June 2006. The critic calls it one of the best recent film noirs and highly original for its high-school setting, praising the gritty visuals, sharp writing, detective work and emotional payoff, while noting it can be too slick and hard to follow at times. [Read the review](https://www.theskinny.co.uk/film/new-releases/brick) ## Digital Spy — Daniel Saney Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 17 May 2006. The critic praises the original genre-bending idea of a high-school noir and its unique style and mystery, but notes it is more intellectually engaging than emotionally involving and can be confusing due to rapid dialogue delivery. [Read the review](https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a33114/brick/) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Our review: https://film.one/film/brick.md