by Eric W.

Jan 25, 2000

A major fault of most movies is the failure to have characters engage in dialouge as real people actually would. The main characters in this movie talk and harass each other just as men in their 20's might actually do.

This movie has what many others don't.... an emphasis on the script. It is a refreshing change of pace.

The movie is smart and funny and well worth checking out.

 

by Jason Whyte

Jan 25, 2000

Clerks is the best film ever made about talking. The first of Kevin Smith's trilogy about Gen-Xers going very limited in life, this film, shot in vivid 16MMblack and white, sports original dialogue, terrific acting, and at the same timemakes a point about life.

One day in the life of two clerks. One is Dante (Brian O'Hallorahn), who runsthe Quick Stop Convienence, a boring, one-note shop where people usually stop in for paper and a coffee, and "a pack of cigarettes". The other is Randal(Jeff Anderson), employee of probably the worst video store on the planet, RST video, situated right next to Quick Stop. (This place is so bad, if Randal wantsto rent a video, he has to go to Big Choice, the blockbuster of New Jersey, toget it.) The best of friends, they usually end up talking to each other. Whileno one is manning the video store, Randal is busy philosophizing about how manyinnocent bystanders were killed in "Return of the Jedi", or how uptight Danteis on getting back together with his old girlfriend, Caitlin Bree. Talk is the ]main thing in Clerks, but that and the themes of the film, finding a job, livinga fruitful life, sex, obligations and love are strong and poignant, far moretough than all the big budget films of the decade.

It is the characters that I will always remember. Dante. Randal. Jay and Silent Bob. Rick Derris. Catlin. Veronica. Olof the Russian. Why? Because they are soreal and so inviting in the film. I feel like I know them.

Grade: A+