Clerks II is not the indie revolution that the original Clerks was, but it is something that it’s predecessor wasn’t: an all-around well put together movie. Sure, Clerks was refreshing and often funny, but the message it was trying to send was a bit to literal and at the same time not entirely established. Clerks II, on the other hand, shows a clear progression of Kevin Smith—it’s funnier, more touching and most important of all, tops necrophilia with bestiality. What’s not to love?
Clerks II
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Raunchy comedies are a curse upon this house of mankind. Sometimes we’ll get a The 40-Year-Old Virgin, but more often than not we’ll get efforts such as Happy Madison’s Grandma’s Boy. Fortunately for us, Clerks II is one of the former, a comedy with just as many jabs at sex and dorks as there are serious moments that give us more detailed characters.
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Clerks II takes up the story where it ended twelve years ago: Dante (Brian O’Halloran) and Randal (Jeff Anderson) are best friends stuck together in dead-end jobs neither wants, trying their half-assed best to do what they can with life. The only changes are their employer (a fast food chain called “Mooby’s” that View Askew fans will remember from Dogma and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back) and a couple of supporting characters played by Rosario Dawson and Trevor Fehrman.
But matters soon get dramatic as we find that Dante’s not only engaged, he’s moving away to Florida and unintentionally abandoning his best friend Randal. And it doesn’t help that Dante’s getting a case of the jitters involving his soon-to-be-betrothed.
It’s easy to expect a Kevin Smith movie to make the inner 12-year-old laugh, and in that respect Clerks II makes the grade. The film brings back racial slurs, furthers pee pee jokes and does something with a donkey that . . . well it does something with a donkey.
But what makes Clerks II such an accomplishment is Smith’s ability to weave this fondness for toilet humor and serious character development into one film. Smith gives Anderson’s character a serious chunk of a problem to have to face, a problem not only that Anderson tackles with ease, but it’s also something you don’t see too often in films. We see plenty of tween girl movies about BFFs getting into hard places, but what happens when a grown man has to cut the jokes and tell a friend what he means to the other?
Smith’s Chasing Amy was able to take a look at relationships with insight and intelligence, and probably had more to say that does Clerks II. But then again, Chasing Amy doesn’t have an epic face-off between Star Wars and Lord of the Rings fanboys that ends in an involuntary bodily function; it’s not half so entertaining as this sixth entry into the View Askwniverse.
If there were a few explosions thrown into the mix, Clerks II might have been the perfect guy movie. It’ll make you laugh and at the same time make you think about the rarely exploited best friend relationship dynamic. Just don’t take anyone who doesn’t appreciate a good ol’ fashioned offensive joke, or two, or 47; it might end with an involuntary bodily function.