Leave a Message After the Bleeeep
Kevin Smith’s Clerks II Tosses out the Last Garbage Pails of Verbose ‘90s Indie Goodness

Kevin Smith’s abusively funny and depraved Clerks II plays like a suburban high school reunion, for the audience and characters alike. Yeah, everyone looks a lot older and pudgier, and things seem awkward at first, but pretty soon, it’s like being back in ‘94.

Randal and Dante, the definitive Jersey clerk slackers who became cynical parents to the nearly nostalgic ‘90s indie movement, are practically breathing the same air. They haven’t fallen into resorting to yesteryear’s motions - they’re still indifferently firing the exact same pointless, scathing and funny banter that won over jobless dudes in no-no jean shorts 12 years ago. But in the sequel time has encroached on their idleness, giving the film a symbolic heart most would not expect.

Dante, he of the goatee, is once again the willing fall guy to the mischief Randal rifles, and in the sequel it’s considerably alarming. Their employment has shuffled from the Quick Stop to Mooby’s, a fictional McDonalds and part of a fast food empire that’s popped up in Smith’s earlier films. Bam! Enter a female: Dante is on the verge of bolting for Florida with a fiancée he’s half-interested in.

Outside, Jay and Silent Bob are still hanging around, blaring music from an MC Hammer-dated boom box and slinging pot to the locals. Jason Mewes, whose recovery from heroin addiction is credited with this film’s existence, is especially sharp as Jay, and he would steal every scene sans the groan-inducing, hilariously distasteful moments that do it instead.

Smith’s filmography is glorious for its verbal filth, but with Clerks II, the Jersey boy ratchets up a brand new bag of bad taste. Bestiality and sodomy references pile up like vulgar, copulating rabbits, sure to induce nausea in many viewers as well as raucously projected laughter from the peanut gallery as they leave. At the press screening ignore attended in midtown Manhattan, Good Morning America film critic Joel Siegel (now infamously) barged out when talk of a donkey became prevalent - announcing as he exited that it was the first movie he’d walked out on in “30 fucking years.” As the film marched on with its joyous debasement, several critics followed, not as dramatically as Siegel, but aligning with his elitist stance nonetheless.

It hasn’t been noted much elsewhere, but if the Weinstein Company’s marketing machine gets enough moviegoers outside of the View Askew cult into theaters, this will be the most walked out on movie of all time. That the notoriously anal MPAA granted this an R rating without demanding a severe circumcision is astounding, seeing as how Smith has loudly toed the NC-17 line throughout his career. One would imagine Siegel-like mass walkouts by MPAA members, but they’re probably forced to stay, and so maybe they just closed their eyes for the last half – or maybe they pined for Trevor Fehrman’s character, Elias, a Lord of the Rings geek co-worker being heralded as the 5th Beatle of Clerks.

There’s a love tap of romance between Dante and Mooby’s boss Becky (Rosario Dawson) that would easily drag the film down if Dawson didn’t possess casual-cool skill at unloading Smith’s verbose garbage pails of dialogue. She holds her own within the stable of regulars, but her character still feels like a concession by Smith to some studio concept of love - the guys in the original, as well as that film’s M.O., would use it for caffeinated, standing cineaste fodder.

The film’s true valentine is pinned on the friendship between Dante and Randal and the former’s non-platonic ship-off. Jeff Anderson, who plays Randal, displays shows some fairly legit acting chops towards the end with an endearing speech that represents the climactic moment of not only both films, but of their whole friendship, and possibly Smith’s career. For a director breast-fed on John Hughes’ flicks and Degrassi Junior High, his world is one where everyone can speak in monologues and get away with it, so even the ridiculous, nostalgic ending is not unwelcome.

When Smith wrote the first Clerks, he was living similarly to his characters, working at a Quick Stop and direly struggling with how to spend his life. He’s obviously found success, and although it seems like a Hollywood life complete with a Ben Affleck friendship and icky Tonight Show appearances would definitely challenge his eligibility to write for never-not-struggling Dante and Randal, Smith succeeds because of one main reason: he loves them, man.

Back to the ‘90s indie film boom: Smith never blossomed into the definitive and agreeably versatile artist that fellow indie contemporaries Quentin Tarantino and Richard Linklater have now become. In a way, it is a high school reunion being played out on the world’s screens. He swam out and tested himself with Jersey Girl and experienced some whiplash. But Smith is a success simply because he’s doing what he does and knows best - making funny and enjoyable niche films for people with similar tastes. And it’s cool to still have him around on the screen. Clerks II is not the culture-defining, grainy, stocky rebel’s tirade its predecessor was, but it’s sharper, funnier and more at ease. It’s a study of growing up, because that shit has to happen, by an important indie figurehead who already has.

-Shawn Wines