First Review: Clerks

CLERKS (1994)

Directed by: Kevin Smith

Synopsis (IMDB): Made for less than the cost of an SUV, Kevin Smith's first film finds 22-year-old Quick Stop clerk Dante Hicks (Brian O'Halloran) called into work on his precious day off. There he is besieged by customers ranging from the agitated to the insane, not to mention Randal (Jeff Anderson), the clerk from the video store next door whose commitment to service is made clear when he observes, "This job would be great if it wasn't for the f@&%!#* customers." Dante's love life is a shambles, and the situation at the store goes from bad to worse, but he and Randal are never so beleaguered that they can't find time to discuss why the destruction of the Death Star in RETURN OF THE JEDI may have been morally dubious (uninvolved contractors were probably aboard). In fact, it was the clerks' clever dialogue, saturated with pop-culture references, that elevated CLERKS to cult-hit status among Generation-Xers and transformed Kevin Smith from film school dropout to indie auteur. Smith himself plays Silent Bob, while Jason Mewes plays Jay, his drug-dealing other half. Together the duo provide added comic relief, continuity, and wisdom in each of the the director's films.

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Impressions that I Get: As I was viewing this, it became very clear to me where Judd Apatow got his original inspiration for his recent string of off-kilter (and especially dirty) comedies. Kevin Smith makes hilarity out of the most mundane setting you may ever see: A run of the mill Conveinance Store. While just plain filthy sex jokes and bizzare occurances such as guidance counselors searching for the perfect egg dozen and philosophical musings on Star Wars may leave a lot of people shaking their heads, I found it to quite entertaining as one could never possibly guess what would occur next. While the film clearly lacks any sort of extravagent plot or cinematic trickery, it more than makes up for it with the joy ride of odd characters and profound (sometimes at least) dialouge between the clerks. However, a fair warning to anybody who can't handle their fair share of perverted humor, as Smith loads it on and loads it on often. It doesn't suprise me that NC-17 was the intial rating for this movie until Smith filed a lawsuit to bring it back down to "R". With all of that in mind though, this movie is one of the better indie comedies I've ever seen and probably the best Kevin Smith has ever made. As Randal ironically says to Dante at the end of the film, "You're so obsessed with making it seem so much more epic, so much more important than it really is. Christ, you work in a convenience store". Yet after watching this, being a store clerk really doesn't really seem all that bad. -AT

Acting (7/10)

Cinematography (5/10)

Plot (5/10)

Originality (9/10)

My Grade: B+ (No, I don't go directly by the math)