'Clerks II': Return of the slackers
Dante and Randal live on in 2006 and bringalong some new recruits in another love song to arrested development.
Colin Covert, Star Tribune
Clerks II
*** out of four stars
The setup: The cash-register commandos of Kevin Smith's debut film return a dozen years later, entering their mid-30s while working at a fastfood flytrap.
What works: Smith's sharp if sophomoric diatribes on pop culture and perverse sex.
What doesn't: He stages scenes like a kindergarten pageant.
Great scene: A wrangle between know-it-all Randal (Jeff Anderson) and Dante (Brian O'Halloran) over whether Anne Frank was blind or Helen Keller was Jewish.
Rating: R for pervasive sexual and crude content, including aberrant sexuality, strong language and some drug material.
I assure you, they're back. Twelve years after their riotous debut in the cult classic "Clerks," Dante (Brian O'Halloran) and Randal (Jeff Anderson) return in all their alienated, sarcastic, "Star Wars"-obsessed glory. These customer-service specialists (using those terms loosely) were indie film's original slackers. They were smart, cynical, raunchy and about as motivated as tree sloths. They inconvenienced every patron of their New Jersey convenience store with epic debates about the fate of independent contractors on the Death Star or by closing the shop to hold a hockey game on the roof. Like Han Solo frozen in a block of carbonite, they appeared destined for perpetual adolescence.
But now, Gen-X has hit its expiration date. In "Clerks II," fate forces the bickering pals, now in their mid-30s, to move on with their lives and tackle adult issues such as careers, matrimony and -- gulp -- parenthood. Flipping burgers at Mooby's, a chain-restaurant purgatory whose menu is guaranteed to shorten customers' life expectancy, they are stumbling into maturity with baby steps.
Dante, the more romantic of the two, is preparing to hang up his fast-food uniform and move to Florida, where marriage and a job at his father-in-law's car-wash chain await. The acidic Randal ridicules his buddy's decision but vows to throw him an unforgettable surprise bachelor party involving a donkey. Becky (Rosario Dawson), Mooby's fun-loving manager, adds another layer of complication to Dante's escape plans.
Writer/director Kevin Smith's universe is now almost as self-referential and dense with recurring characters as George Lucas'. "Clerks II" is a fan-pleasing reunion of sorts, with cameos from Smith regulars Ben Affleck and Jason Lee, plus the return of Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith), drug dealers who have popped up in almost all his films to date. The new film may not have vast crossover appeal to people unfamiliar with Smith's work, but he opens up the inside jokes a bit with some entertaining new characters. In addition to the fancy-free Becky, there's 19-year-old fry cook Elias (Trevor Ferhman), a sweetly geeky "Lord of the Rings" fan who enrages Randal by suggesting that his sacred text is the greatest fantasy trilogy of all.
The acting of Smith's stock cast is game, but the new recruits are outstanding. Dawson makes you believe she would go for Dante, that sad-eyed pessimist. Fehrman's fidgety, virginal dweeb, terrified by the hazards of the flesh, is a great foil for the relentlessly foulmouthed Randal. Fehrman makes Elias both exasperating and irresistible, like an over-affectionate puppy.
Smith's filmmaking talent remains raw. He stages scenes like a kindergarten pageant, but as a writer of dense, vibrantly obscene dialogue, he's unsurpassed. His characters' trash talk has a well-cadenced, almost poetic eloquence.
It also defines them. The film's finale, a poignant monologue by the cynical Randal on the importance of loyalty, shared history and friendship, makes us see what Smith sees in these loafers. They're fearlessly frank but unevolved guys shut off from the world at large while focusing on the rude comedy in their own heads. You might not want to keep hanging around with them at 33, but it would be hard not to reminisce about how much fun you had when you were 21.
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