Review of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) by Samantha P — 08 Oct 2010

Kevin Smith's `Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back' strikes me as being the closest Smith has come to doing a movie in the style of Woody Allen or something like that.

I'm not the biggest Allen fan, but I give the guy his due, in this like Allen in many of his films, he uses the same basic character, in this case, the Jay and Silent Bob duo, in situations which parody some other major movie genre. The target in this film is both Star Wars and movies based on comic books.

The story is very much a continuation of the background situation in `Chasing Amy' where Ben Affleck and Jason Lee play two cartoonists who create a comic `dynamic duo', Bluntman and Chronic, based on Jay and Silent Bob and their exploits in the movies `Clerks', `Dogma', `Mallrats', and `Chasing Amy'. Many stock Smith characters and actors from these movies appears in this film, including Matt Damon appearing as himself, Jason Lee appearing as both the cartoonist and the owner of a local comics store who clues Jay and Silent Bob into the fact that Mirimax is making a movie based on the Bluntman and Chronic characters. Affleck also appears in two roles as cartoonist and himself, in a scene out of `Good Will Hunting' which he plays with Damon, with Gus Van Sant playing himself as director of same. Chris Rock from `Dogma' plays the director of the `Bluntman and Chronic' movie. Two `Star Wars' veterans, Mark Hamil and Carrie Fisher appear in brief roles to beef up the `Star Wars' theme. Even Alanis Morrisette appears briefly as God, based on her role in `Dogma'. About a half dozen other Smith chronies also appear here and there in cameos.

Before you write this off as a quirky exploitation of earlier Smith material plus a generous amount of larceny involving both George Lucas and Stan Lee material, just think about how many times you laughed at the latest toney romantic comedy like `Laws of Attraction' and `Irreconcilable Differences'. If much of the humor in this movie is `cheap', at least it's funny. Some of the other cameos are funny just by their showing up. Casting Jon Stewart as a news reporter is worth a chuckle just by the sheer obviousness of the casting. Will Farrell, of course, does a terrific job as a clueless wildlife marshal and Dietrich Bader does a good job playing the role of the keystone cops as the leader of the security forces at the mythical Miramax studios. As Smith points out in the commentary track, Miramax does not have a studio.

Running gags abound. The interaction between Jay and Silent Bob is one long gag. The only problem with that is that Silent Bob breaks silence twice, which may be once too often. This worked better in `Dogma' where he also spoke only twice, but with only two or three words each time. Smith copies Woody in having at least three sly bits of business where the cast looks knowingly at the audience, generally with the intention of wondering why we the audience are so dim as to be watching this very silly movie.

But that's the point. This is an intelligently silly movie, and now I can say, that after watching this movie so many times I consider this one of the greatest comedy movies of all time and my personal favorite . . . .