Review of Be Kind Rewind (2008) by Derm F — 03 Jan 2010

Be Kind Rewind is a American comedy directed and written by Michel Gondry and starring Jack Black, Mos Def,Melonie Diaz, Danny Glover and Mia Farrow. The plot takes place in Passaic, New Jersey, the declining "Be Kind Rewind" VHS rental store owned by Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) is due to be demolished to make way for high-end development unless he can find the money to renovate his building, despite his claims that jazz pianist Fats Waller was born in that building (Waller was actually born in Harlem on May 21, 1904). Mr. Fletcher leaves on a trip for several days to join friends and memorialize Waller, leaving his only employee, Mike (Mos Def), to tend to the store, cautioning him to keep away Mike's paranoid and klutzy friend, Jerry (Jack Black). After attempting to sabotage a nearby electrical substation, believing its energy to be melting his brain, Jerry becomes magnetized, and when he enters the store the next day, he inadvertently erases all the VHS tapes in the store. Mike quickly discovers the disaster, and is further pressed when Miss Falewicz (Farrow),Mr.Fletcher's friend, wants to rent Ghostbusters. To prevent her from reporting a problem to Mr. Fletcher, Mike comes up with an idea: as Miss Falewicz has never seen the movie, he proposes to recreate the film using himself and Jerry as the actors and cheap special effects hoping to fool her. They complete the movie just in time when another customer asks for Rush Hour 2. Mike and Jerry repeat their filming, enlisting the help of Alma (Melonie Diaz), a local woman, for some of the parts.

Word of mouth spreads through Miss Falewicz's nephew (Chandler Parker) of the inadvertently hilarious results of Mike and Jerry's filming, and soon the store is seeing more requests for such movies. Mike, Jerry, and Alma quickly pass off the movies as being "sweded", insisting the films came from Sweden and thus able to demand long wait times and higher costs for the rental. Soon, to meet demand, Mike and Jerry enlist the locals to help out in making the movies, using them as starring roles in their films. When Mr. Fletcher returns, intent on converting the store to a DVD rental outlet, he quickly recognizes that they are making more money from the sweded films than from normal rentals, and joins in with the process.

Be Kind Rewind is a very good film that is more than just a comedy. This film has a very interesting story and some very interesting characters to go along with it. I thought Jack Black and Mos Def where great in this movie. I think the reason why alot of people loved this film was because it was just a simple story with no fancy special effects just simply shot, it was just a good story. Michel Gondry did great job directing and nice job writing the film, big UPS to him. All in all I thought the movie was great, so if you are looking for a simple story I would recommand this film. I give it 4 stars out of 5. Great film!!!!!