Be Kind Rewind

On a whim, I moved Michael Gondry's 2008 film "Be Kind Rewind" to the top of my Netflix queue. Although I don't regret the decision, I will say that I didn't have the best luck either.

In the movie, Jerry (Jack Black) and Mike (Mos Def) are working at a little independent video store in New Jersey, when they accidentally erase all the tapes while their boss Elroy (Danny Glover) is out of down desperately trying to figure out how to save his business. Jerry gets the idea to "Swede" (independently re-make) as many movies as they can, with hilariously successful results. Business booms until a lawyer (a great cameo by the great Sigourney Weaver) representing several film companies puts an end to the fun. In a last-ditch effort to save the video store, the entire town bands together to make a new movie about a "local" jazz hero as part of a fund-raiser. Although the money raised falls woefully short of what is needed to save the store, the decaying town is brought together in the wake of their civic loss.

The movie had a lot of potential, but only ended up showing a lot of heart. But that heart carried a movie higher than it should have ever gone, considering the final product. The ending is a bit of a tearjerker at the moment when Elroy reveals that he's accepted the store's relocation to the projects and that the money is nowhere near enough, despite everyone's best efforts. The ending was touching, but, unfortunately, it was too late to save the drag of the rest of the movie. The first two-thirds of the movie were so slow, clunky, and awkward, that it was slightly beyond the salvage of the ending (or even the help of a Sigourney Weaver appearance!).

As a comedy, this movie really fell flat. There were only a few "laugh out loud" moments which were overshadowed by far too many "awkward chuckle" sequences. The "sweded" movies are not funny crappy re-makes, but, too often, just crappy re-makes. Jerry and Mike are not a silly-type of stupid (think Andy Bernard from "The Office"), but the characters are literally stupid - the implication being that their intelligence may be correlated to their home proximity to a power plant. As a result of this, there's a feeling of guilt whenever they do something stupid - as though you probably shouldn't be laughing at them. Over the course of the movie, this feeling wears thin and uncomfortable.

Ultimately, the ending of the movie serves as a perfect allegory for the movie itself - a lot of heart, but not enough to save the entire operation.