If you are a fan of comedies and/or comic books in general, chances are you’ve heard of Kevin Smith. He’s known today as a skilled filmmaker who talks a lot about movies & comic books. Maybe you’ve already checked out his Youtube channel or listen to his podcast. It’s hard to not like the guy and the energy he injects into his conversations. But like a lot of well known people in Hollywood, his beginnings as a filmmaker are pretty humble and ordinary. And it all goes back to this 1994 joint.
Set in New Jersey, it’s a buddy comedy film that focuses on two store clerks. Dante works at the Quick Stop which is kinda like a convenience store but focuses mainly on selling groceries. His friend Randal works as a clerk in the video rental store next door and spends a lot of his time with Dante while he is on the clock. They interact with a variety of people who come by, including Jay & Silent Bob, drug dealers who loiter outside of the two stores. They will be become staples of Kevin Smith’s future films and will eventually become icons in their own right. But in this film, just as ordinary as everyone else in the film. And that’s the best way to describe the movie. Ordinary people doing regular, boring stuff to pass the day with no real goal in mind.
That is both the strength and the weakness of “Clerks”. Finding a film that doesn’t have a plot that drives everything forward can be hard to find, and films that successfully pull that off are even rarer to find. For this movie, it kind of flips back and forth. There are moments where the casual approach to the story and characters does work. But other times, it can come off as awkward. One of the contributing factors is that this film does feel like a student film project being presented in class. It’s shot in black & white which, while gives it a unique stylistic choice, does reinforce that perception. There are also title cards inserted for when it transitions to a new scene or new part of the day. And the dialogue goes back and forth between being realistic and being unnaturally forced. You do have conversations that do sound like something real people will actually say. But then in another scene you might have a guy rapid fire a bunch of dialogue at once that will go more in depth than naturally expected for that specific character.
But that awkwardness of the film can also help the movie stand out a bit more. And while this isn’t the best film in Kevin Smith’s filmography, it has probably served as the first film a lot of people watch where they have seen this kind of casual movie the first time. The first time a bunch of people have seen movie characters talk about the same stuff they probably do with all of their friends. And that’s the reason why this has become a cult favorite. And thankfully, his next film “Mallrats” improved a lot of the weaker elements of this film, showing Kevin Smith’s growth as an artist. But if this film has escaped you or your feeling a little nostalgic for it, it’s worth watching again.
