It seemed like an interesting to combine a high school movie with the classic film noir, so I rented this weird little movie. After having seen it, I have to believe the director watched every single one of those old classic black and white noir genre films because this is picture perfect homage to those films. To me, that is a huge compliment and a nearly rave review in and of itself.
The movie is essentially about a high school trying to figure out what happened to his ex-girlfriend. Within the school there are gangs and even a 25 year old kingpin they just just call "The pin." Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as the main kid. He plays him as a brash, ready for anything, highly intelligent kid and it works on every level. Actually all of the acting in this thing is great. In reality, the real star of this movie is the writer/director, Rian Johnson. This movie is his first full length feature and he is amazing. He captures the essence of the way the older movies were filmed and adds genius touches to his characters. You do have to pay attention to the dialogue though because if you don't the characters sound like they are speaking strictly in non-sequitors and that can be a headache for trying to follow along.
If you can get through the kind of agonizing first 15 minutes I think you'll be in for quite a treat and I think this director should be in for quite the bright future because they all have to start somewhere!
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