The praise-soaked pedestal occupied by director Kevin Smith is lofty, and while there is no denying his ability to write eclectic dialogue and recruit dynamic performers to recite it (and I stress the word "recite"), he often gives the impression of someone who is holding back. His films frequently have the faint odour of "good enough", when he could just as easily be making a push to be the best of the best. Based on the existing Smith movies I've seen (Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back), I've never quite understood all the hoopla. Ultimately, in terms of a genre or a style, no matter which way you try to classify his pictures, there are scores of similar kinds of films that are better executed and are more enjoyable to watch.
Those who know my cinematic tastes are probably muttering that it figures I wouldn't enjoy a movie like Clerks, just to be contrary to public and critical opinion. Rest assured, this is not the case; I have made some distinct efforts to enter the world of Kevin Smith, and have viewed his pictures with an open and light frame of mind. Consider this: I first saw Clerks in 1997 and didn't like it then (although I must confess I preferred it to Mallrats, which I saw at the same time). Despite the dislike, I revisited the movie again recently because, every once in a while, I hope to sway initial impressions of heavily-buzzed films, so that I can assign blame somewhere for my oversight, be it in the manner of my state of mind at the time, or the conditions under which I viewed the film. When all is said and done, although I commend Clerks for being made in spite of a low budget and despite some moments when I laughed at outlandish circumstances or preposterous topics of conversation, I am confident that I will not need to see it ever again.
In terms of story line, not a lot happens in Clerks, but that's okay. Along the way, there are quasi-endearing warts that save it from becoming overly long and dreary. We meet the pretentiously named Dante (Brian O'Halloran), who is called at home to take an emergency shift at the terminally boring, local convenience store (hence the Alighieri allusion to Purgatory). Dante encounters an array of characters throughout the day, including a candy salesman in sheep's clothing, an egg examiner, and a grizzled old pervert. To counter his monotony, he takes part in a hockey game, attends a funeral, and tries to work through his personal problems.
Pardon the pun, but forming Dante's inner 'circle' are an equally diverse bunch. There's Randal (Jeff Anderson), the surly, obscene type of right-hand man that has become a staple of Smith's features, Dante's girlfriend Veronica (Marilyn Ghigliotti, in a nails-on-chalkboard bad performance), Dante's former girlfriend Caitlin (Lisa Spoonhauer), who is now engaged to someone else, and Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Smith himself), the pair of drug dealers whose popularity and screentime has increased as the years have gone by. While it may be unfair to critique the acting in an independent debut shot in black and white -- particularly one with the colourful history of Clerks -- these are still among the most dry and one-note of performances you're likely to see in a movie. Given the encyclopedic content of Smith's script, it almost becomes a contest to see which speaker will race through his sentences the fastest, and it's the viewer who loses (or has to watch with the captions on in order to catch what is being said).
The film is temperamental. Whenever the characters in Clerks are waxing poetic on something inane such as the ending of The Empire Strikes Back, it smacks of realism. That a pair of guys with little ambition would kill time on such topics is authentic and often funny. However, whenever Smith inserts cerebral words, expressions and arguments into their brains, it consistently shatters the illusion just as quickly. It's as if Randal and Dante go from Beavis and Butthead to Kant and Nietzsche in the same breath, and we know better. Smith merely comes across as showing off as opposed to assigning story points and character traits where they belong in order to rattle off as many in-jokes and incontrovertible arguments as he can muster.
There is no denying Kevin Smith's Tarantino-like reverence of pop culture, his proficiency with the pen, and his love of cinema. Legions of fans adore his ability to juggle sarcasm, flippancy, and wit, and certainly there are times when he successfully hits the mark and then some. From my vantage point, his biggest stumbling block would appear to be maintaining some kind of consistency in developing all of the pieces that form a cohesive whole. Apparently, a sequel to Clerks is in the works. This will no doubt go hand in hand with the recent tenth anniversary special DVD edition of this movie. My reaction to such an announcement remains that, even as colourful as these characters are, I am not in any particular rush to see them -- or at least the actors portraying them -- again any time soon.
