One of the movies that re-defined
independent cinema in the United-States during the early 1990s, “Clerks” marked
the arrival of New Jersey filmmaker Kevin Smith. It also marked a new trend in
movies geared towards large audiences: characters that actually speak the way ordinary
people talk. The characters in Quentin Tarantino films often riff on pop
culture, but that is usually before they end up shooting someone. The
characters in Kevin Smith movies also riff on pop culture, but they hold
ordinary jobs in the real world. In his 1994 feature film debut, his characters
hold the most ordinary jobs in the western world: clerks at a mini-mart.
I was way too young to see this movie when
it first came out, but I eventually ended up watching in what is, lets face it,
the ideal location to watch a movie like this: my mom’s basement with my older
brother. Of course my mom had zero interest in this movie, but my brother and I
laughed our ass off and had a great time. I am pretty sure it was the first
time I ever saw movie characters discuss the moral implication of killing
everyone on the Death Star in “Star Wars” only to have a private contractor
chime in on their conversation and compare the event to the time he did
construction work at a mobster’s house.
Set in a Quick Stop convenience store in
Leonardo, New Jersey, “Clerks” stars Brian O’Halloran as Dante Hicks, who is
called in to work on his day off. His day shows no sign of improving after he
arrives at work as he discovers someone has jammed the locks to the store’s
security jammers with chewing gum, leaving him no other option than to put a
huge sheet over the doors with the message “I assure you, we’re open.”
His work neighbour is Randall Graves (Jeff
Anderson) who works at the video store, a near-extinct establishment nowadays.
Dante and Jeff have a mutual dislike for their jobs, having to endure customers
asking questions like “what kind of movies do you have?” They prefer to close
their stores for any reason such as playing hockey on the roof, or going to the
funeral of one of Dante’s ex-girlfriends, with disastrous results in both cases.
As the day goes by Dante questions his
place in the grand scheme of things, wondering why he is wasting his early
twenties working as a clerk. His current girlfriend Veronica (Marilyn
Ghigliotti) also believes he is wasting his life and needs to change. Adding to
his misery, Dante learns from the local paper that another one of his
ex-girlfriends is moving on with her life by getting married.
Also in the mix are Jay (Jason Mewes) and
Silent Bob (Kevin Smith), two slackers selling marijuana outside the store.
This would-be dynamic duo has appeared in most of Smith’s comedies, eventually
getting their own movie in 2001 with “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.” Despite
the fact the Silent one almost never speaks, over the years they actually end
up going on more adventures than Dante and Randall.
The lives of these characters is a story
about ordinary men stuck in a rut and afraid they have nowhere to go. They
discuss the wondrous adventures they have seen in movies and TV, but their own
lives are stuck in neutral. No wonder the film resonated with so many young
people with it first came out. Times may have changed since the 90s, but the
worries are still the same.
In terms of the movie’s humour, I have
noticed many of Kevin Smith’s comedies have at least one scene of
cringe-inducing disgust, one scene that will make you go “holy shit, what did I
just see?” In “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” a woman defecates on a man’s face.
In “Clerks II” a man has (I am hoping) simulated sex with a donkey. Smith’s
directorial debut also did not miss a chance to shock audiences when a female
character goes into a bathroom to have sex with her boyfriend, only to realize
the only person in the bathroom was a dead man who was busy with some adult
magazines before going into the great beyond. It is incredibly crude, but you
have to admire the level of imagination involved with coming up with such
crudity.
Recently Smith has announced he plans to
retire his film career after shooting “Clerks III.” Why not? He may as well
finish right back where he started. My only question is this: what disgusting
scene will he come up with this time?
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