CLERKS II
And now...part two of the homoerotic adventures of Randal and Jay
PopcornReel.com Film Review: "Clerks II"
By Omar P.L. Moore/July 21, 2006
Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob ("Clerks II" director Kevin Smith) reading the Book of choice; while best friends Randal (John Anderson) and Dante (Brian O'Halloran) are in the midst of confrontation, in "Clerks II". (All photos: MGM/The Weinstein Company)
Kevin Smith returns to direct this sequel to the first film
over a decade ago, and this one was worth the wait in every way. Never
short of near gut-busting laughter, "Clerks II" is more than scathingly
politically incorrect -- it is brazenly uninhibited in its expressions,
sentiments and in your-face-bravado, sometimes false bravado, more often
painfully honest and bitingly sardonic.
Still in New Jersey after all these years, Dante (Brian O'Halloran) and Randal
(Jeff Anderson) are clerks at a fast-food chain restaurant called Mooby's (after
Quik Stop burns to the ground in the film's opening moments). The tag-line
for the restaurant, which has its fair share of dubious hygienic practices is
"I'm eating it!" During the ten-plus years, Dante has been getting it on
with the beautiful manager of Mooby's, Becky (Rosario Dawson -- who is terrific
here as an easygoing boss), and he is also about to get married to Mrs. Hicks
aka Emma (Jennifer Schwalbach), who is getting him ready to move to Florida with
her prior to the wedding. So this one day as "Clerks II" opens, is the
last day on the job for Dante before he flies southward down the east coast of
the U.S.
Something tells you that it will be a long last day.
Randal is Dante's best buddy since forever, and he is also the most misanthropic, racist, and homophobic person that New Jersey has ever had. When people joke about New Jersey being the swampland of the United States, deep down inside they have got to be thinking about Randal, for he is a sewer of filth, woman-hating, verbally abusive, cold-hearted, repugnant swine.
But he's funny. Even as you may be offended by his rants about the
disabled or physically challenged, or about his dogged argument that the term
"porch monkey" is not a racist slur against blacks, or about the necessity to
try kissing someone in the mouth after kissing the deepest parts of their
backsides (that's as delicately and as "cleanly" as I can put it in this
review), you cannot help but laugh at some of his tirades. The thing is,
Randal (like most racists and misanthropes), actually believes in what he is
saying. He has the pick of many of Mr. Smith's best scripted lines, and
again, there are an abundance of them.
Once again Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (the director Mr. Smith) are back
and their interludes serve as a kind of commercial break to all the non-stop,
razor-sharp comedy and insult-laden dialogue. They too are offenders in
the free-for-all battle royale that is "Clerks II". Jay does his best to
upstage Randal with his own vitriol and outre behavior. Both Randal and
Jay seem to want to be the opposite sex as much as they crave the
opposite sex, what with their frequent declarations of the kind of "food" they
like to eat. This mantra of theirs is proudly and lustily spray-painted on
the side of the restaurant.
As for their occupation, Jay and Silent Bob are the number one dope dealers in
the Garden State. And with the money they have made selling their sniff,
it is not surprising that they can help finance a venture of Dante's in a most
critical moment in this thoroughly enjoyable film.
"Clerks II" is filled with ribald social commentary about human behavior and American pop culture. There are debates inside Mooby's restaurant between Randal and a customer about whether the original "Star Wars" trilogy is better than the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. The customer settles, or tries to settle the debate by saying that Peter Jackson won a best director Oscar, while George Lucas went empty-handed in that endeavor. There is also "Barbershop"-talk that all are involved in -- and the women (Becky and Emma) give as good as they get with the dialogue Mr. Smith gives them. Wanda Sykes (also in "My Super Ex-Girlfriend") fumes at Randal, leaving Mooby's and declaring a lawsuit against him and the establishment as he defends the use of "porch-monkey" and vows to reclaim the word and take its racist sheen away. (This is not unlike those blacks who use the "n"-word and declare that they too are taking it back from its original progenitors.)
Some of the friends, enemies, and acquaintances pay a visit to
Mooby's, and you will note some familiar faces during "Clerks II". Mr.
Smith who is a reputedly devout or at least strict Catholic, contains references
to the Bible and various other things. Jay parades around in a "got
Christ?" t-shirt (the saying is airbrushed out of the shirt for the television
commercials in America), and there is even some "interspecies erotica", courtesy
of one Kinky Kelly, in a hilarious and horrific-you-can't-look-but-can't
look-away scene.
Kevin Smith who is a native of New Jersey, does an entirely masterful piece of
work setting things up again in New Jersey.
Copyright 2006. PopcornReel.com. All Rights Reserved.
"Clerks II" is rated R in the United States, for an abundance of filthy language. The film runs for 98 minutes.