Director: Kevin Smith
Cast: Brian O’Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Jason Mewes, Trevor Fehrman
Have I Seen it Before: Well…
Did I Like It: I remember after taking in Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008) lamenting a bit that the occasionally promised evolution of Smith as a filmmaker was at best delayed—in favor of what felt like a thematic regression—and might never come to pass. Years later, as I took in Jay and Silent Bob Reboot (2019) I was mildly charmed by the prospect of a reunion with old friends who were, by all appearances, content in if not insistent on staying exactly as they were in those fabled good old days.
And here, with a (final?) return to the Quick Stop I’m stuck somewhere in the middle. If anything, this felt far more like what one might have expected from Clerks II (2006), in as much as it actually takes place in the aforementioned Quick Stop. But then again, I’m willing to die on the hill that the second movie is far funnier than what we’re treated to here. Although, I will admit one’s reactions to the films of Kevin Smith are different at 22 than they will be at 38*. Not for nothing, but the realization made nearly thirty years ago that a little convenience store in Jersey doesn’t photograph all that great in color still holds up. Hence, the second movie spending as little time there as possible.
But there’s something beyond these little quibbles that is not quite right about this movie, and it’s taken me a few days to put my finger on it.
It has absolutely no idea what it wants to say about death. Or, in the alternative, it knows what it wants to say about death, but can’t hold that thought for long without directly contradicting it. Dante (O’Halloran) and Randal (Anderson) facing their mortality is a fine enough (albeit not inherently comedic) premise, but the idea that life is for the living only works for precisely one half of our heroes. Randall makes his movie (which, since it isn’t 1994 couldn’t possibly exist in a market absolutely engorged on independent film, but whatever) and finds purpose where he resolutely avoided it in the past. Dante, on the other hand spends the entire movie trying and failing to move beyond his grief, before he just dies anyway? I suppose he just wasn’t supposed to be here (Earth) today, but Dante’s arc—such as it is—is absolutely inert by the time the movie is over.
Oh, and the movie wasn’t especially funny. There, I can be a near-forty grump again.
* In a row? See, I can still get in the spirit of things…