Clerks II (2006)

December 19, 2006

Written by: Kevin Smith
Directed by: Kevin Smith
Starring: Brian O’Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Rosario Dawson, Jason Mewes, Kevin Smith

In Clerks II, Randal has once again left a cigarette burning in a Quick Stop trash can, this time resulting in the complete destruction of the place. Dante and Randal find themselves working at Mooby’s, a western-themed McDonald’s clone where Randal seems perfectly happy torturing Elias (Trevor Fehrman), an obsessively geeky co-worker, and still ranting about the state of the universe while Dante is serving out his last days before leaving for Florida. Jay and Silent Bob have relocated to the restaurant wall and resumed their business. Most of the conversations and scenes revolve around Clerks ViewAskewniverse style topics like Lord of the Rings vs Star Wars, bestiality, reclaiming the term “Porch Monkey” as a friendly term, and the ethics of ass-to-mouth.

But there’s been more than just a change of scenery– there’s some question of whether the center here can hold. Jay and Silent Bob are still involved in the street trade, but they’ve been through rehab and Jay has seen a particularly Jay-ian version of the light. Dante is visibly aged and about to marry a domineering woman and leave his home to live in a house given to the couple by her father run run one of her father’s chain of car washes. This prospective change poses some problems for the so-far-never-able-to-change Dante, not the least of which is the obvious interest he has for Becky (the insanely beautiful Rosario Dawson) who his improbably interested in him. And what will Randal do without Dante, his best (and only) friend?

Clerks II wants to have everything both ways– have everything stay in place, but also have them change change; have somone remain wedded to their cynical, slacker outlook while becoming a business owner and father; be an indie cult-style movie filmed by a respectable filmmaker with a reasonable budget. Smith’s smart enough to know this– and he even mocks himself a bit with a strange, shark-jumping, Bollywood meets Fame scene– but he just can’t help himself from trying to unite the contradictions.

The problem here is Smith’s essential sweetness. His best movies are those where that sweetness is allowed to play out, such as Chasing Amy and (yes, really) Jersey Girl. The original Clerks wasn’t devoid of this quality, but it was left to us to figure it out. And it worked. It doesn’t work as well here. As much as I’d love to believe in a woman like Becky (just as I’d love to believe in a woman like Jersey Girl’s Maya), and as firmly as I have always believed in the essential center of goodness in Dante, Randal, Jay, and Silent Bob– I didn’t need to be shown explicitly. And more realistically, the characters I believe in would never have shared of themselves that way– and their creator wouldn’t have let them.

Maybe it’s just a myth, but I seem to recall Kevin Smith once saying that he would never make a second Clerks film. True or not, I always thought that was a good instinct, and one that became more and more true as time went by and Smith’s movie became a cult classic even as his own filmmaking took a more conventional turn. Dante and Randal belong inside the Quick Mart forever, just as Jay and Silent Bob should remain against the wall outside for eternity. Outside of the cameo roles, these are characters who inhabit their own perfectly apt little universe… and that universe is an essential part of who they are. It was a great story, well told, and the lack of progress, growth, climax, and resolution is decidedly a part of the world in which they live. Clerks II itself makes this case (at least in part), leaving me to wonder what the point was in giving in to the temptation to make thise sequel (assuming Smith feels anything like his fans when it comes to these characters)? I laughed more than once, but my happiness at seeing the beloved characters can’t overcome the sadness at seeing a cherished memory of their earlier incarnation blurred by this one.

Tags: cinema, film, review, Screening Log