director/screenwriter
Kevin Smith
producers
Sean Daniel
James Jacks
Scott Mosier
cinematographer
David Klein
music
Ira Newborn
editor
Paul Dixon
cast
Jeremy London (T.S. Quint)
Jason Lee (Brodie Bruce)
Shannen Doherty (Rene Mosier)
Claire Forlani (Brandi Svenning)
Ben Affleck (Shannon Hamilton)
Joey Lauren Adams (Gwen Turner)
Renée Humphrey (Tricia Jones)
Jason Mewes (Jay)
Kevin Smith (Silent Bob)
Ethan Suplee (Willam Black)
Stan Lee (Himself)
Priscilla Barnes (Miss Ivannah)
Michael Rooker (Mr. Jared Svenning)
mpaa rating: R
running
time: 94m
u.s.
release: 10/20/95
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
official
website
other kevin
smith films
reviewed on this website:
- chasing
amy
- clerks
- clerks II
- dogma
- jay & silent bob strike back
- jersey
girl
|
Brodie
(Jason Lee) and T.S. (Jeremy London), the befuddled and talkative
teens in Mallrats, hang out and debate whether Lois Lane
could survive impregnation by Superman. (They conclude that only
Wonder Woman would have a uterus sturdy enough to carry a Superbaby
to term.) They don't limit themselves to this topic, but all
their conversation belongs to the same genre of meaningless but
very funny talk. In short, Brodie and T.S. are almost clones
of Dante and Randal, the heroes of writer-director Kevin Smith's
previous film, Clerks.
Is this all Kevin Smith can do -- two unambitious guys sending
up verbal balloons? I prefer to think that Smith, who has a sharp
ear for dialogue, has other shots in his cannon, and that Mallrats
is to Clerks what Robert Rodriguez's Desperado
was to his El Mariachi: a name-star, bigger-budget version
of the fledgling auteur's no-frills calling card. Yet the charm
of Clerks and El Mariachi was their smallness and
low-budgetness. Painting them on a larger canvas doesn't do much
for them.
That said, I enjoyed much of Mallrats. Smith has assembled
a decent cast, though the best I can say for Shannen Doherty,
as Brodie's bored girlfriend, is that she proves she's a good
sport. And Michael Rooker, who just a few years ago seemed to
be getting dignified roles, appears as the ranting chrome-dome
dad of T.S.'s girlfriend (the appealing Claire Forlani) and is
required to put his foot through a floor, lick chocolate off
his fingers in merciless close-up, and spend half his screen
time puking; he must really be a good sport. Joey Lauren
Adams, an up-and-coming Gen-X actress (she was in Dazed and
Confused and Sleep with Me),
has a pleasant, unself-conscious, bubbly sexiness. And comics
fans will get a kick out of Stan Lee's cameo as himself, dispensing
"Face front, true believer" wisdom. (If Mallrats
is a hit, maybe George Lucas will drop into Star Wars
fan Smith's next movie.)
Almost everyone has lively things to say, the topics usually
centering on the Kevin Smith triumvirate of sex, comics, and
movies. The show-stealers, as in Clerks, are the slacker-Mutt-and-Jeff
team Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Smith himself). Mewes
seems to tune in to an oddball galaxy far, far away (he'd have
been perfect in Dazed and Confused); at times, he's like
a foul-mouthed version of the wacko Disney characters capering
around the margins of The Lion King or Pocahontas.
Smith doesn't act much -- his character isn't called Silent Bob
for nothing -- but he knows how to use his big, beefy body, and
his sober deadpan links him with Buster Keaton. What doesn't
link Smith the director with Keaton is his rather uninspired
handling of slapstick. Silent Bob goes crashing through ladies'
changing rooms or beats up the Easter bunny, and you appreciate
the idea of it, but you're acutely aware that you're not
laughing. Smith is best with verbal slapstick, not visual.
Smith's movies are something like the easygoing, pleasantly unambitious
slackers he puts on the screen. Maybe I shouldn't criticize Smith
for returning to the same ground in the $7 million Mallrats
that he covered in the $27,000 Clerks; after all, Quentin
Tarantino's sophomore effort was Pulp
Fiction, not much of a genre jump from Reservoir
Dogs. Yet I watched Mallrats feeling that Smith
had already handed in a brilliant first draft with Clerks,
and that Mallrats, though printed on better paper and
free of typos, is an unnecessary second draft. Kevin Smith is
a viciously witty and refreshingly rude writer, and not a bad
rough-edged comedy director. But how much further can he go with
these scrappy talking-heads movies? (Mallrats provides
a blunt answer: no further than the mall.) The true test of comedy
directors, be they Billy Wilder or John Waters, is how deftly
they can adapt their gifts to a variety of stories. Smith needs
to move on now -- he needs to shit or get off the pot. |