“Brick,” directed by Rian Johnson, is one of the best neo-noir movies ever made. The plot attempts to recreate all the elements of a classic noir in a California suburb, unfolding near a college campus. A persistent teenager embodies the attributes of the brooding gumshoe detective and begins his own investigation into the murder of his ex-girlfriend, landing himself in a dangerous world of drug dealers. He must play his cards right to escape alive.

The plot opens near a secluded tunnel of a small canal where a young man, Brendan Frye (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), is standing beside the corpse of a teenage girl. The plot then moves to a flashback, two days earlier.

Brendan Frye is a brooding high school student, coming to terms with the breakup of his relationship with his former girlfriend, Emily Kostich (Emilie de Ravin), a few months ago. He finds a note in his locker from Emily, directing him to a nearby pay phone. There, he receives a call from her, in which she gives him a garbled message. He can only make out the words “bad brick,” “Tug,” and “Brick.” She indicates that she is in his vicinity and in trouble. However, she refuses his offer to help her out of her situation.

Just then, a black Mustang passes him, and its unseen driver drops a lit cigarette on the road. There seems to be a mysterious arrow sign engraved on the cigarette. Brendan meets with his best friend, Brain (Matt O’Leary), a nerdy teenager, and tries to decrypt the words he heard from Emily.

He finds a card with the picture of a mysterious mask and soon discovers that it is an invite to a party after meeting another former girlfriend, Kara (Meagan Good). He goes to the party, held at an ostentatious mansion.

He has a tense encounter with a hostile young man, Brad (Brian J. White). Brad’s girlfriend, Laura (Nora Zehetner), approaches Brendan and gives him undue attention, wanting to get to know him. Brendan rejects her advances, sensing that she is not trustworthy.

Laura directs Brendan to Dode, a junkie and a former love interest of Emily. After beating up a barely conscious Dode, he soon meets Emily. Emily tells Brendan that she has moved on and is on a different path and that he should forget about her. She makes light of the message she had given him earlier on the phone.

Brendan steals Emily’s notebook before she leaves and, from a symbol in the notebook, visits the canal the following day, where he finds Emily dead. Now, the plot is in the present again, and Brendan decides to find out how she was murdered without involving the law.

He hides Emily’s body inside the tunnel and begins his investigation. Brendan learns that Brad is a drug dealer but deduces that Brad is only a worker bee for someone more powerful, known as the “Pin.”

To work his way up the food chain, Brendan intimidates Brad and then beats him up in the ensuing fistfight. Soon he confronts a stronger, more powerful young man, Tug (Noah Fleiss).

This time, Brendan gets a thrashing, but he persists in asking Tug to take him to the Pin, paying no heed to Tug’s powerful blows to his face and body. Tug finally gives in and takes Brendan to a secret location.

Pin (Lukas Haas) turns out to be a crippled young man who heads the drug trade organization, consisting of many members. Pin’s minions are responsible for distributing drugs around the school’s campus.

Brendan asks Pin for a job, and Pin tells him that he will make a decision the following day. Pin conducts his business from his home, and his mother seems well aware of his trade. Laura, too, is at Pin’s home and offers to give Brendan a ride home.

The following day, Brendan has a close call with a knife-wielding assistant but soon outmaneuvers him. However, he soon realizes that Pin has decided to grant him employment.

Brendan makes peace with Tug and realizes that Tug is secretly conspiring to take over the reins of the criminal enterprise from Pin. Things get more complicated when the police begin to look into Emily’s disappearance.

Next, Brendan meets with the principal of the high school (Richard Roundtree) but refuses to divulge anything. The principal reluctantly lets Brendan go, not wanting to get himself involved in the troublesome situation.

To complicate matters further, Dode calls Brendan and lets him know that he saw Brendan hide Emily’s body inside the tunnel. Brendan must now play a deadly game of wits to uncover the truth behind Emily’s death and come out of his predicament alive.

After more twists and turns, Brendan discovers the dark plot behind Emily’s murder. There are more powerful revelations to come. Who is Laura? Is she a genuine friend or a femme fatale, trying to protect herself and using Brendan to achieve her own plans? Can Brendan survive a gang war, as Tug tries to usurp the mantle of the drug boss from Pin? The rest of the plot answers these questions.

Rian Johnson, who also wrote the movie’s screenplay, took a big risk, bringing the universe of a classic noir from the neon-lit dark city to a college town. The mobsters, the detective, and the femme fatale have their matching counterparts in Johnson’s universe. The entire cast puts in fine performances, especially Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who plays Brendan.

Lucas Haas performs ably as the drug lord, Pin, the counterpart of the mob boss in film noir. Tug is the strongman who works for his boss and is a fine embodiment of the thug bodyguard often seen in classic noir.

Gordon-Levitt brings his own flavor to the brooding hero, who in this case is lamenting the loss of his girlfriend. Spectacled and long-haired, he sports a jacket and blue jeans, a contrast to the film-noir detective, who is typically clad in a dark suit. We see shades of the ambivalent hero of classic noir heroes in Brick too, when he shows his dogged persistence to find out the truth about Emily. he neither wants to assist the police, nor his vice principal in apprehending the drug gang. The climax of the film, which I obviously will not divulge here, will reveal more of his moral ambivalence.

The slick cinematography by Steve Yedlin also adds to the fast-paced plot and incorporates many lighting effects from classic noir. As mentioned earlier, “Brick” will be regarded as a neo-noir classic, in the vein of movies like “Drive” and “Nightcrawler.” It should be on the must-see list for all audiences, especially fans and students of noir movies. Do not miss this classic.