Clerks II
Written and directed by Kevin Smith
The Weinstein Co./MGM
2006
Rating:


It may be strange to describe a film as "heartfelt" when it features a donkey show and an extended discussion about a troll named Pillow Pants that lives in a girlfriend's vagina, yet the description is apt for "Clerks II." Writer-director Kevin Smith was inspired to make "Clerks" in 1994 after he saw the static camera work and talking heads of "Slacker." "Clerks II," oddly enough, feels like his answer to Linklater's "Before Sunset" — both films revisit Generation X heroes who are now burdened with the weight of missed opportunities.

Having survived the Bennifer debacle of "Jersey Girl," Smith returns to document another day-in-the-life of "Clerks" anti-heroes Dante Hicks (Brian O'Halloran) and Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson). "Clerks II" begins in the black-and-white of the original and depicts Dante stuck in the same rut where fans left him as he opens the Quick Stop. The film is soon thrust into color and Dante is forced to change his life when he opens the door and discovers the convenience store is on fire. Randal initially claims it must be the work of terrorists before confessing he left the coffee pot on and then shouting, "Now where am I going to bring chicks to fuck when my mom's home?"

Out of work, Dante and Randal are forced to take jobs at the Disney-McDonald's hybrid Mooby's (vilified in "Dogma" and "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back"). "Clerks II" follows Dante on his last day of work there before he moves to Florida, gets married to Emma (Smith's wife Jennifer Schwalbach) and starts his new life as the manager of his father-in-law's car wash. Matters are complicated by Dante's feelings for his boss Becky (Rosario Dawson) and Randal's unease at losing his best friend. While Dante's reaction to becoming a thirtysomething is to radically change his life, Randal mainly vents his apprehension by mocking his teenage co-worker Elias (Trevor Fehrman) and his love of "Transformers" and "Lord of the Rings," which Randal calls "three movies about people walking."

Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Smith), their adventures in "Dogma" and "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" perhaps never having actually transpired in the "Clerks" "mythology," lament they haven't done more with their lives than hang "out in front of places selling weed and shit." Jay's dissatisfaction is easily cured with jams provided by Silent Bob's boom-box and an out-of-nowhere "The Silence of the Lambs" impression.

Smith hasn't lost his unparalleled gift for vulgarity. Dante and Randal face down an old peer (Ben Affleck) and recount the tale of how he had to eat a pickle that had been shoved up his own ass. Dante, Randal and Becky debate the hygienic appropriateness of going "ass-to-mouth" and whether sleeping with a woman who has an "oversized clit" is a slippery slope to having sex with a man with an "undersized dick." Randal makes an "LOTR" fan throw up with his description of a Frodo-Sam "suckfest." And then there's "Kelly and the Sexy Stud."

Smith certainly knows his way around a profane turn of phrase — "I hope that donkey doesn't have a heinie troll!" is one to be cherished — but he also deeply cares about his characters and their fates, taking Dante and Randal to a surprisingly moving finale. Despite the presence of "interspecies erotica," "Clerks II" is, indeed, heartfelt.

Posted Saturday, January 20, 2007

Link to this review:
http://filmzeus.pressbin.com/film/clerks2