POISON SCOOTER

Clerks 2

As an impressionable college kid some 12 years ago, my passion for film was taken to a whole new level by a vanguard group of young indie filmmakers who burst on the scene in almost rapid fire succession. Richard Linklater provoked me to think with Slacker, Quentin Tarantino made me appreciate violence as art, Spike Lee brought African American issues to my white world and Kevin Smith made me piss my pants laughing at the raunchiest humor I'd ever seen in a movie.

Clerks was released in 1994, and it completely worked for me on every single level. I loved the soundtrack, the sex talk, the interplay between Tons of Fun Silent Bob and weed smoking/dealing, trenchcoat wearing Jay. But the real joy for me was the relationship between Dante and Randel, two early twenties lazy bums who were shown as witty, thoughtful malcontents dead set on arguing about every nuance of pop culture or sex. The script by Kevin Smith was the real hero in this low budget, amateur acted, black and white movie that could. Smith had an incredible way of giving his characters a mouthful of words that rolled off the tongue like bullets from a machine gun, but never letting you the viewing lose interest before the big zing.

Seeing that Clerks 2 was made finally was a bittersweet revelation to me. On the one hand I've been very invested in Kevin Smith's body of work and wanted another chance to revisit with my old friends from the Quik Stop. On the other hand, my fear of how badly Mr. Smith would fuck it all up scared me to death. After the spectacle that was Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, which I think is a very funny movie, I was concerned that Smith had lost touch with the heart of his original film and was merely good at writing filthy one liners that poked holes at everything and anything in the entertainment world. Boy am I glad that this new Clerks plays out like the original but in color and with a more familiar looking cast.

The Dante and Randel we remember are exactly the same, Randel is gross and hateful, Dante expressive and confused about matters of the heart. The only difference is that they are puffy, have hair issues and now work at a fast food joint instead of the Quik Stop thanks to a tragic accident put in motion during the brilliantly constructed opening scene. I felt very nostalgic watching these two verbal swordsmiths dust off their abilities and go to town, knowing that both actors never really amounted to much outside of this world and that this was no doubt going to end the journey for them. But I also felt old. Seeing Dante want to marry a chick for the sake of marrying her and Randel not want to conform to an adult lifestyle made me realize that not only have these two not done much growing in 12 years, neither have I.

The movie is perhaps going to mislead folks with it's trailer, it's written, directed and edited by Kevin Smith and has a lot of the same production issues as the original. Odd blocking, poor hair and makeup and the same Jay and Bob laugh out loud diversions all which work to give this movie an air of respectability in my book. The ending is perhaps a little to sugary sweet for me (shades of Jersey Girl Smith), but in the end I realized that I laughed a lot, I got to check in on some old friends and I didn't come out of the theater cursing Smith for ruining the strength of his classic original.

posted by Scooter @ 9:34 AM