Review of Clerks (1994) by Connor B — 27 Jul 2014

Clerks, the movie that proved a really good and articulate script could make up for low budget production and hand-held direction so that it transcends and come out with a hilarious film loaded with down to earth observable humour and weird scenarios which makes the viewers think twice about jumping into conclusions about store clerks and their various perspectives on life.

Kevin Smith stars as one of the characters(Silent Bob), who is true to his name and never utters a line in the entire film except for a single sentence which profoundly affects the main character. The other characters being played by both professional and amateur artists delivers a spontaneous performances where acting is restricted to authentic delivery of the dialogues.

The movie is in Black and White, and has a extreme B-movie flick ambience to it, but as soon as the characters start talking the movie takes on a different trajectory altogether. The movie is basically about a duo of store clerks and their lives as well as the lives of others who come and interact with them during the course of one day and the events that befall them on the fateful day.

The situations are in itself funny, but never does Kevin take them into the extreme and make it seem over the top, but instead these events are contrived on the basis of the people who inhabit the town and each one of them are very plausible. But it is even more smarter and funnier with sharper dialogue and a keen sense of observation, which the screenplay so perfectly injects.

Clerks becomes of one those films whose ambitions were never to reach for the stars or drown us in excessive and obnoxious sex and drug humor. But instead to portray the lives of those who barely manage to scrape a living in a dusty stagnated town where there aren't a great deal of things to do but vent your frustration and disillusionment with either drugs and sex or by perfectly articulating your emotions to the people around you so that you can get through the day.