Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back (Cinema: November 2001)

If Moulin Rouge is the most extravagant film of 2001 then Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back is certainly the most outrageous.

Smith's movies are hit & miss. Clerks worked well. Mallrats was awful & even Smith acknowledges Chasing Amy never worked. Dogma was enjoyable if overexerted and oddly cast yet hinted Smith was learning his trade (even if it was on the job). Hence I didn't expect too much from J&SB.

But you have to hand it to Kevin Smith, he's taken several million dollars of studio money (in this case the frequently ridiculed Miramax), had a laugh with his mates and made a genuinely funny film. Smith ropes in previous regulars, pals & characters to ham it up in a veritable showcase of the world of Kevin Smith. Which itself is a fine feat considering the kind of scorn his previous films have met with and the heights people like Affleck have climbed to.

The first half of the film is a basic 'best of' previous efforts with old favourites dipping in & out in an attempt to make a credible feature length movie based around the characters of Jay & Silent Bob - one a mute, the other a foul mouthed, sex-obsessed, immature, miscreant drug dealer. It's a smart move by Smith, our familiarity with the warm, witty & likeable distract from the fact that neither Jason Mewes or Smith can really act or offer much in the way of empathy. A volley of famous cameos & bizarre plot diversions keep the ball rolling while our disreputable leads notch up brownie points by saving all the poor animals from a research laboratory.

The second half of the film verges on Airplane! territory with the comedy coming thick and fast with a host of cameos from eye-candy like Shannon Elizabeth to Judd Nelson, Wes Craven, Shannon Docherty, Gus Van Sant, Dawson of said Creek & "the guy who fucked a pie" in American Pie.

The script is sharp & painfully self-referential & with a tagline like "Hollywood had it coming!" it all begins to make sense. We get Matt Damon & Affleck on the set of Good Will Hunting 2: Hunting Season (a classic), talking to camera moments, Affleck & Damon bantering about films they've been in, Van Der Beek, Docherty & Mark Hamill playing themselves, pastiches of The Fugitive, Road Trip & just about whatever else gets in their way, a fag-aganza of gay jokes, rampant sexism, nuns, industry in-jokes & scatology. The film is just sooo anti-Hollywood & sooo politically incorrect you are never left wanting. No one is safe. Even Smith's alter-ego Silent Bob is constantly the butt of fat jokes. And how long have we waited to see someone tonguing Shannon Elizabeth and asking her point blank to fuck him. And when she kisses him (cue music) he stops, telling her not to change the subject: is she gonna fuck him? Smith has taken every Hollywood cliche & virtue & turned it into a sin, lambasting his critics with a display of zeal you can't help but applaud. I mean, how many films conclude with the triumphant lead characters tracking down the 12-year old nerds who've dissed them on the net and beating the crap out of them?

Long live Kevin Smith.

Strangely, unlike previous efforts, there is no James Bond-style Jay & Silent Bob will return in... credit at the end (although Alanis does a nice dance). Instead we are served up with "Jay & Silent Bob have left the building."

Let's hope not for too long...

RATING:

(c)Limer 2002