How you react to this odd but undoubtedly promising debut movie will depend on how receptive you are to its bizarre conceit - that a bunch of contemporary high-school students would start talking and behaving as if they're straight out of a Dashiell Hammett novel (albeit with more swearing). The plot is similarly hard-boiled. Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a preternaturally tough-natured teen who reluctantly investigates the mysterious disappearance of his ex-girlfriend (Lost's Emilie de Ravin), only to be pulled into the grimy underbelly of school culture and come up against the sinister criminal figure of "The Pin" (Lukas Haas). Rian Johnson's film is deliberately complex and stylishly done, but it suffers from the familiar teen movie problem of a cast that is patently too old for college, let alone high school. Conversely, the odd juxtaposition of a classic genre with a cast that is too young to participate in it convincingly does occasionally, and unfortunately, bring to mind Bugsy Malone. These criticisms aside, it's undoubtedly a daring, often well-made debut.

A teenage loner pushes his way into the underworld of a high school crime ring to investigate the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend.