If you can suspend your disbelief at 25-ish
actors playing high-schoolers who spout Dashiell Hammett-inspired gangster
slang and rule over unreal-seeming crime fiefdoms, there’s a half-decent,
tricky mystery here.
They’re giving out booklets with this movie, a glossary for
the old-school slang used by the characters, who are mostly new-school
gangsters. High school gangsters, actually, who don’t use expressions like
“old-school” but call cops “bulls” and drugs “hop” or “jake,” and who mostly
look about 25, like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the charismatic star. He’s kind of a
James Dean type, a loner, but a call from his ex-girlfriend (Emilie de Ravin)
brings him into contact with a drug-dealing subculture. The dialogue and action
take on a film noir feel, which jarring contrasts with the drab, flat settings.
Aided by a tinkling, minimalist score, writer-director Rian Johnson sets his
nefarious plot in empty highways, bland tract houses, parking lots, and the
ordinary-looking school, the visual counterpoint making a virtue of low-budget
cinematography. There’s a half-decent, tricky mystery here if you can sort it
out with all the mumbled, slangy dialogue, but I felt that the film was more
pretentious than clever. I was too aware at times that I was watching a movie.
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