Be Kind Rewind is not a comedic romp, nor is it meant to be. Rewind is an homage to video/film buffs and imagination. It more celebrates the fun of cinema as the two lead characters Mike (Mos Def) and Jerry (Jack Black) seek to “revision” their video rental store's lost collection of VHS tapes into 20-minute homemade movies. This is most evident in the remake, or sweded version, as it’s called in the film, of RoboCop. The actual movie is bleak and violent with its intended commentary on fascism. Mike and Jerry’s movie speaks more to our collective vision and remembrance, which is to say it’s about a bitchin’ cyborg cop kicking some major ass!
When Mike’s boss and father figure, Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover), is pressed by local zoning officials to vacate his condemned building, which is home as well as business space, Mr. Fletcher goes on a quest to find out what makes major Blockbuster-style rental businesses work. He leaves Mike in charge while he is away with the caveat that Mike must “keep Jerry out!” Jerry, a paranoid, holds beef with the electric plant he lives beside and in an act of terrorism against it is electrocuted and thusly magnetized, and needless to say Mike fails to keep Jerry out, and so the magnetized Jerry enters the video store and erases all the movies. To meet the demands of a couple of customers who threaten to tell Mr. Fletcher about his charge’s ineptitude Mike decides that they will remake the movies to fool the patrons. The patrons go unfooled but love the movies anyway and demand more. Enter two lawyers representing Hollywood bearing copyright claims and cease and desist orders.
Despite the acknowledgement of copyright issues and the presence of big bad Hollywood Be Kind Rewind is not about a mom and pop business making a stand against a corporation, but is about a small corner of a town that just wants to hold on to its dignity and not be gentrified into a bland indistinguishable part of a city already sold out to the Starbucks-lifestyle.
The movie isn’t all message either. There are great funny moments, and even some Jack Black buffoonery that harkens back to the days of High Fidelity. Jack Black reprising Jessica Tandy’s role in Driving Miss Daisy is hilarious and innocently offensive. One easily loses themselves in the wonder and DIYness of Gondry’s trademark low-tech special effects.
But the real weight of this film comes at the end in its climax. Not to give it away but the inevitable happens, and we’re left amid a people’s small victory garnering the same results as a non-victory, but a victory nonetheless.
My only problem with the movie is that more time could have been spent on the script. The story drags in parts, especially when we’re not reveling in a sweded moment. To the writer/director’s defense a lesser man would have filled these moments with belabored drama of how one must attack his dreams and whatnot. Gondry purposefully, and anti-Hollywood-y keeps these moments light. But those light moments could use a bit more finesse.
In A Nutshell:
The movie is plenty good and refreshing given Summer’s bloated blockbusters; Fall’s melodrama and, for whatever reason, bevy of run of the mill horror flicks; and Winter’s disparaging throw-away movies. It reminds us movie/video buffs why we are the way we are and even reminds that we don’t just have to be voyeurs of our beloved stories.
My Favorite Moment:
There are a few but one that sticks out and amplifies the “reminds us movie/video buffs…” comment is when Mr. Fletcher is in a Blockbuster-type rental store writing down all that he sees that would help his business. In front of a wall of shelves bearing the same big budget Hollywood film he says to himself something to the effect of “give the customer less choice and more copies of the same movie.” Gondry, I heart thee.
At the moment this is my favorite thing.
