Kevin Smith’s unexpectedly funny revisit to his classic slacker comedy.
[Rating: 4.5]
This review was written 10 years too late
When I first read Kevin Smith had sequelled his debut low budget masterpiece “Clerks“, I sighed in despair at what I thought was a desperate need to cash-in, then took no more notice of it.
Quite why I chose to return to it ten years later, then, I can’t say.
But I am glad I did.
Set 10 years, but made 12 years, after the original, Dante and Randall no longer labour at the Quick Stop convenience store (guess who burnt it down?) and now ply their customer-loathing, barely working trade at Mooby’s fast food restaurant. Dossing around outside are reformed drug peddlers Jay and Silent Bob. They’re still selling, just not using. But Dante has an escape plan – moving to Florida where his fiancee’s family will furnish him with a home and a job. Randall, of course, will be bereft without his foil. And then there’s lovely Rosario Dawson as Mooby’s manager Becky, who seems a little too close to Dante for Randall’s liking.
Smith really pulls the film off. Dante and Randall (and Jay and Bob, in their own way) have matured sufficiently to have adult-sized problems by realising they are at a crossroads where they actually have to do something with their lives. At the same time, they retain enough of their enviable irresponsibility that makes them so appealing – arguing over Star Wars vs. The Lord of the Rings, or Randall’s non-stop misanthropy and filthy mouth. “Clerks II” doesn’t retread. It has developed.
But make no mistake. It’s no coming-of-age/adult drama.
Not by any means.
Not with the donkey-fucking.
Not with a near naked Jay doing his best cock-between-the-legs Jame Gumb dance.
Not with hilarious foul, verbal exchanges between servers and customers (spot Ben Affleck and Jason Lee cameos).
Splendid late-night stuff, you pickle-fuckers.
Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLvhJ0m5ask
Whole movie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6xVXAkbr-0
