Brick - Too heavy for most viewers......

Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, this film follows a young man on a quest for answers. His girlfriend is dead and he's stuck in the dirty world of drug trade. As he digs deeper he has one friend and an ever-growing list of enemies. It's the ultimate game of chess as he plays all sides in his search for a resolution.

On the surface this sounds like a great film. In execution I would say it falls far short. The story is interesting but the dialogue is pretentious and overdone. At times I'm not sure I understood what they were saying, sometimes that adds to a film, this time I think marked it as a writer trying too hard.

There are shining moments in the film as the dialogue did succeed in small doses. The action and acting also had some nice scenes as well. The camera work was definitely an exercise in art house film.

In the end this was a collage of efforts that fell short or felt forced when they didn't need to be. With all the small successes the film didn't work as a whole. It was a film that tried to push some boundaries but wasn't believable. Despite  all of this I did watch all the way through and was pleased to see that the ending did tie up the story in a way I could at least understand.

I couldn't give this film more than 1.7 stars out of 5. I'm sure some critics in the film world loved it but I'm not sure that the everyday film viewer would enjoy it.