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| Jay and Silent Bob strike back |
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| Movies,
jeremy carpenter,
31 October 2001 |
Rating: F3
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‘Lard ass’ beardy director Kevin Smith has been gaining plaudit points for years now with his singular US comedy efforts, winning over the critics with his ‘perceptive’ scripting style, and entertaining the chuckleheads with the oafish antics/toilet humour factor. Personally, I find him his recent stuff a bit of a pain in the A, the dialogue coming out of the mouths of the diverse characters in his past two films, ‘Dogma’ and ‘Chasing Amy’ sounds like one man waxing lyrical in a style only a few points removed from the irritating introspective banter in ‘Dawson’s Creek’. It’s clever stuff, but I find it makes the characters less human and likable, which is a downer when human relationships are the focus of his work rather than any kind of film making style. Also he uses Ben Affleck, and I really hate Ben Affleck.
But I keep going back to his stuff just because he does the low-brow elements so damned well. His bad language quotient is of the finest quality, and when spoken by masters like Jason Mews is the bestest fun. Previously Mews had walk-ons only in Smith’s films, accompanied by Smith himself and Jay’s silent partner Silent Bob. But now, in what seems to be in one of Smith’s wisest moves, the pot-heads have been pushed up front to carry an entire movie, ‘Jay and Silent Bob strike back’, a ramshackle spoof filled road movie that’s got everything and everyone in but the muppets.
The film kicks off at a blistering pace cuss-word wise, as J & S discover there’s a Hollywood film based on their comic book alter-egos in production, and every internet chat forum is labelling them ‘ball-lickers’ for it. So begins their cross country journey from New Jersey to LA that fits in stolen Orang-utans, moronic law-men, sexy jewel thieves, the Scooby gang, and the whole bag of Smith regulars along the way. But no muppets. Round about here is where I stick the bit in where I say the film has it’s tongue wedged so firmly in it’s mouth it’s drawing blood. Ok, that’s done.
Somewhere amongst this weird bastardisation of ‘Smokey and the Bandit’ and ‘Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure’ (they get to ride Pee-Wee’s bike ! ) there’s a romantic sub plot for Jay with the nice girl jewel thief, and credits due that it doesn’t derail the moronizing. But as they film gets into it’s last half hour the constant barrage of in-jokes and knowing dialogue gets a bit much and film stops being great and heads into o.k. territory. Even the appearance of Mark Hamil playing an evil Jedi guy in a fright wig called ‘The Cock Knocker’ can’t lift it. Shame really, because for the first half hour this is Smith’s best film, if only because Mews is so great, and if the whole two hours was just him mugging to camera it could’ve been bliss. With perhaps a few muppets as well.
Post note: When I first saw this I was completely trashed and according to those in the room I was burping and slurring for the whole second half, consequently I only remember the good bits. At that point it was the best thing I’d seen all year, so maybe that’s the ideal way to view it.
UK rating:
18
US rating:
R
Directed by Kevin Smith
With Jason Mews, Kevin Smith
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