Clerks 2

When I first heard that Kevin Smith was making a sequel to his landmark indie movie, I was dubious. Being a rather strong fan of the original Clerks, my fear was that a sequel (affectionately dubbed The Passion of the Clerks back in the heyday) would somehow cheapen the magic of the first movie—but thankfully, my fears were unfounded. I watched this for the first time at my favorite of all theaters, The Arlington Cinema ‘N’ Drafthouse . . . and when Dante first appeared on the scene, pulling up in front of the Quick Stop in all his black and white glory, the smile couldn’t have been chiseled off my face!

Clerks 2 picks up our golden boys, Dante and Randal, 10 years after that glorious day of roof hockey, Chewley’s Gum, milk maids, and “Berserker”. Only at the start of Clerks 2, the Quick Stop is burning down, and Dante and Randal must find themselves a new job. It came in the form of Mooby’s, a kind of variation on Wendy’s or Burger King (whether that’s a fictional chain or an actual one, I’m not sure). And of course, Jay and Silent Bob relocate with Dante and Randal, despite Randal’s restraining order from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. As time goes by and our golden boys grow roots at Mooby’s, Dante gets engaged and is preparing to move to Florida with his fiancée. Bring in Rosario Dawson (who looks incredibly hot in this movie!) as Dante’s boss/best friend, and we have the alternate love interest. You can imagine where it goes from there. Let me just say, I envy Brian O’Hallorann for all his scenes with Rosario!

Let’s be totally honest here: you may not find a raunchier movie this side of "South Park". They sure weren’t kidding when they said there was something to offend everyone—and yet I loved every minute of this flick! Every bad joke, every tasteless dirty-minded sex line, I loved it all!!!

What does that say about me and my sense of humor now? I don’t know who should be more afraid—me or you! (Though I will admit, the donkey show was kinda over the top, and I don’t think a lot of people wanted to see Jason Mewes going full-monty à la Silence of the Lambs.)

Randal, as always, is given the best lines of the film. His examination on what is and isn’t a racial slur, his nickname for Lance Dowd (played by Jason Lee during National Redneck Week—I mean, during his break from filming “My Name is Earl”), not to mention his facial expressions upon hearing the “Pillow Pants” story from Elias, are priceless! Just like in the first movie, he has a dirty-minded yet dead-on-target perspective about so many things. And I love how he trashes Lord of the Rings in his confrontation with co-worker Elias and the one customer. But given that I’m not a fan of Star Wars, either, I could relate to the flip-side of the argument as well.



Going into Clerks 2, part of me was undecided about how to approach this movie in color. Given that the first movie was an uber-low budget project, being shown in black and white imparted a unique sense of character to that film. As such, I kinda wanted an homage to the first one by having the sequel be in black and white, too, but Smith cleverly weaved his way into the Technicolor world by showing the Quick Stop fire in bright orange against the grainy black and white background, then jumping right into color after that. Thus, the coloration of the film became symbolic—color representing Mooby’s, and black and white representing Quick Stop.

This movie, while not the deep examination of misery while working customer service jobs (like the first movie was), delves into what it feels like to reconcile your progressing adulthood with the simpler and happier times in life, i.e., when you were only a few years younger and it felt like you would live forever and your friends would always be your friends, and how those happy times feel like they’ve slipped away faster than you realize. At 28 going on 29, already with a friar’s patch (that’s what I call my ever-growing bald spot) and something of a belly, I can certainly relate to that. I look back 6 years ago to the young boy who stepped out of college and migrated southward to DC, and I hardly recognize him. My friends are still my friends, but in just those 6 years, we’ve all changed, as our lives have changed. Randal knows this, and that’s why the scene where he pours out his heart to Dante in the jail cell is so genuine and so touching.

Having worked in customer service for 6 years during high school and college, I remember the hell that it could have been some days—but I still look back on those times with such fondness and sentimentality that now, working a professional job and earning a professional salary that I can live off of, I actually find myself missing those old grocery store days. Randal sums up some of my feelings perfectly when he and Dante are in the jail cell following the donkey show. He basically says that at Quick Stop, he could chill out, hang out with his friends, and still make money; no other job in the world could afford you that kind of freedom. Their choice to actually purchase the Quick Stop themselves and reopen it under their own management actually made sense to me. Working at that store was no longer a demeaning job for them; it was what they were destined to do, it was their calling, only now they were in a far greater capacity than just simple clerks—they were the owners and proprietors.

A fitting end, I felt. And when that final shot arrived, with Dante and Randal back at the helm of the Quick Stop, the camera pulling back through the aisle and dropping down to black and white . . . it felt like I’d come back home.

An even 10 for Mr. Kevin Smith. I just have to wonder, though, if there will be a third movie, to make this a Star Wars-like trilogy. Perhaps Clerks 3: Revenge of the Milk Maids? One can only hope!