VHS is pretty much dead now, but it has one characteristic that "Be Kind Rewind" revolves around: expose it to magnetism, and it dies.So you can probably guess what happens in Michel Gondry's fourth movie, and his first foray into all-out comedy. It has some plot holes and a rather bizarre premise, but there's a warm, funny little heart buried in the kooky antics and wild remakes of every movie from "Ghostbusters" to "Lord of the Rings."
Be Kind Rewind is an ancient video store, and supposedly the birthplace of unknown jazz legend Fats Waller. It's also due to be razed for a new block of condos -so store owner Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) goes on a scouting trip for a week, leaving his conscientious clerk Mike (Mos Def) in charge.
Unfortunately local weirdo Jerry (Jack Black) tries to destroy a local power plant, because he believes it's controlling his brain. Instead he gets fried, and his body becomes a walking electromagnet -which they only discover after he's wandered through the store, erasing all the old tapes. Even worse, a regular customer (Mia Farrow) wants "Ghostbusters" by that evening.
So Mike and Jerry hurriedly shoot their OWN version of the movie, with the help of Alma (Melonie Diaz) and soon they find that their "Sweded" movies have a growing fanbase, and they are statewide celebrities. But the demolition deadline is approaching, and Hollywood lawyers are threatening them for copyright infringement -will the town's new devotion to these quirky "Sweding" moviemakers help them stay?
Michel Gondry's movies are always set in "real life," but with a few drops of the unreal -memory erasure, waking surrealist dreams, that kind of thing. And even though "Be Kind Rewind" is set in a grimy, shabby New Jersey town, it has the same delightfully unreal quality -it's a genial buddy comedy where literally anything can happen.
I'll admit, there are some moments that don't entirely work. Note the awkward "this town is a swamp" exchange, and we're expected to allow the plot holes to slide (where did the infringement lawyers go?). And that whole magnetized body fluids thing was just gross.
But despite its flaws, it's somehow a very lovable movie. It's crammed with physical and verbal comedy ("Iloveyou Iloveyou we'relovers kissme!"), ranging from amateur train hijacks to an inept break-in at a DVD rental store. And a merely entertaining movie becomes sidesplitting when our heroes start shooting a ghastly no-budget "Ghostbusters" with fishing rods, tinsel, and bags of goo. This is followed by "Robocop," "2001," "Rush Hour 2," "Driving Miss Daisy" and several others -all with no budget, borrowed costumes, cardboard sets, and a cast of rank amateurs.
Gondry is obviously having a roaring good time lampooning Hollywood blockbusters. But he also injects some deeper currents into what could have been a one-joke movie -there's a bittersweet subplot about the possibility of losing the store that has brought a community together. Yeah, it's supposed to tug at the heartstrings, but it really does work -particularly since the movie rental industry is going belly-up.
One particularly nice touch is that the movie ends -and is punctuated by -scenes of a very low-budget, old-looking biopic of Fats Waller. Initially it just seems like another conceit, but it turns out to be very important to the plot.
Black is a delight as the insane Jerry, brimming with manic energy -in one scene, he encases himself in aluminum foil. Mos Def's Mike is more pleasant and low-key as the responsible boy-next-door type, and Danny Glover is outstanding as the paternal, gravel-voiced Mr. Fletcher. Diaz is also quite solid as a vague love interest/codirector/costar; and keep an eye out for Sigourney Weaver in a small cameo.
Michel Gondry's fourth full-length film is a big-hearted, mildly bittersweet little comedy, with the slightly unreal quality you expect from his films. I want the Sweded "Be Kind Rewind!"
I expected a loud, slick parody with lots slapstick. What I saw was a film whose tone and pace shifted constantly. It was a surprising film in that it dares to confound expectations at all times. It had some truly funny moments, some quiet moments of surprising depth and some instances where the film almost ground to a halt.
I suppose that knowing it came from Michael Gondry (of ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND and ADAPTATION) should have alerted me that nothing would be conventional about the film. I think I let the presence of Jack Black distract me.
I'm glad I saw the film, and I had a pleasant time doing so. But it's slack pacing and constantly shifting tone did lull me into a drowse from time to time. This film will not do well at the box office, but it's also the sort of film that will develop a small but fevered cult-lite following.
Mos Def works at the store named BE KIND REWIND, run by the kindly Danny Glover. The main thing this incredibly run down store in a run-down section of Passaic, NJ has going for it is the fact that this is the building in which Fats Waller was born many decades ago. Mos and his friend Jack Black have listened to stories about Waller for years, and so they feel a dedication to keeping the store going and they feel an obligation to the poor and downtrodden denizens of their neighborhood. (We simply have to accept that none of these folks is yet clamoring for a DVD player.) So when Jack Black (a conspiracy-theory nut who runs a really shabby mechanics shop and lives in a trailer) becomes magnetized (don't ask) and erases all the videos...it's panic time for these two. Glover is away for a few days, and has left Def in charge. So these two "brain trusts" come up with idea of recreating all the films, one at a time, in the hopes of not being caught for their irresponsibility.
They first take on GHOSTBUSTERS, and the clever manner in which they recreate scenes from this film on a literally zero budget (and take on many of the roles themselves) is pretty darn priceless. The biggest laughs of the movie, by far, come in these re-creations. Later they take on RUSH HOUR 2.
No one in the neighborhood is tricked by these films...but the two auteurs inadvertently create a demand for these 20 minute, no-budget renditions, and they start a little business recreating films on demand. They get several different movies in production at once, so we see DRIVING MISS DAISY, MEN IN BLACK and KING KONG (among others), all being recreated in a junkyard. The methods they come up with to re-create beloved scenes are inspired in their lunacy (and serve as excellent reminders about how so much of filmmaking is the right camera angle!).
The film also tries to become a somber meditation on this neighborhood, and the value of preserving it. The building is set for rehabilitation by the city, and Glover must grapple with his impending loss. The city officials aren't really painted as "bad guys"...and no one is really saying the city doesn't deserve a rehab. It's just more about the way that the old must give in to the new, and how sometimes the old wasn't all it was cracked up to be anyway.
There are more plot twists towards the end, and eventually the film, which is pretty lightweight, is weighed down by a sense of sadness. While I'm okay with sadness permeating a "comedy" (see DARJEELING LIMITED, for example)...the sadness in this case translate into a film that nearly grinds to a halt...everyone just moves slower and looks droopy.
The script is certainly part of the problem. Gondry was clearly shooting for whimsical...but the scenes of re-filming movies are too close to parody for the whimsy to really work. And the two leads are also a problem. Jack Black is trying to reign in his natural tendency to be antic, to ground himself more in reality...yet the script wants him to be a nut. Mos Def, who comes across as more naturalistic, has a mumbling or diction problem that makes him hard to understand at times, and makes him vaguely annoying. Glover is doing his "sad old man" bit again, and Mia Farrow shows up to do her "slightly wacky old lady" thing. Sigourney Weaver shows us to do a tiny cameo, and her star presence is completely wasted.
There are many things to admire and laugh at in BE KIND, REWIND. By the same token, there is much to fault. It's amazing how such a quiet movie could be so WILDLY uneven.
This movie was funny & Heartwarming at the same time. Jack Black & Mos Deff Make a great team in this hilarious movie about a video store own trying to save his shop. i recomend this movie to everyone.
Read Best Reviews of Be Kind Rewind (2008) Here
This is just a fun movie to watch. Jack Black puts on another hilarious performance. Mos Def and Danny Glover are also great as are so many others in the cast.Want Be Kind Rewind (2008) Discount?
When Elroy Fletcher(Danny Glover), owner of Be Kind Rewind video rental store, goes out of town he leaves Mike (Mos Def) in charge with one rule: Keep Jerry (Jack Black) Out! But when Jerry becomes magnetized trying to sabotage the local electric plant he makes his way into the video store and erases all the video tapes in the store. Finding that none of the local video stores carry video tapes having switched to the more popular DVD, and with customers threatening to call Elroy, Mike and Jerry take matters into their own hands and start recording their own versions of popular movies. Claiming that the versions are imported versions of films from Sweden, their "Sweded" films become popular amongst the citizens of Passaic, New Jersey.French director Michel Gondry is a very unique director, taking a look at his 2004 masterpiece Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and you can see that this isn't your average director. Having amassed a body of work that doesn't just stop at film (he played the drums on Kanye West's Diamonds From Sierra Leone) Michel Gondry has become something of an underground sensation. He created effects that would eventually be used in high profile films such as The Matrix, and was the first to use morphing technics in a video clip. Put him together with rap phenom, as well as Emmy and Golden Globe nominated actor Mos Def and rock star/ comedian Jack Black and what do you get?...
A great and heartfelt movie that's a love letter to film, an ode to the classic DIY spirit, and a reminder of the importance of history and the ability to change it and make it our own. Written by Michel Gondry based on an idea he got from directing Dave Chappelle's Bloc Party, Be Kind Rewind is a movie that mixes heart with comedy in a fashion that never seems schmaltzy and is very original. And the atmosphere of the movie is infectious, as the duo begin inviting others to help in making the "Sweded" videos you feel drawn in as if you're part of the process. This movie has also sparked something of a revolution, look up Sweded on Youtube and you can find other people Sweded versions of movie and movie trailers.
With actors like Danny Glover and Jack Black you expect a mixture of good acting and well played out comedy in this movie, and in casting Mos Def and Jack Black the casting directors definitely made the right choice. Jack Black is of course Jack Black, which doesn't always work in every role he plays, but here he understates slightly, dialing down his tendencies to overact on occasion. Mos Def, as always, proves masterful playing the straight man to Jack Black's crazy, perfectly filling out the bromance. Of course, you can never count out Danny Glover who is the most tortured soul in the movie as a man set in his ways realizing that he has to change with the times if he wants to keep his business, and he greatly excels at making you feel and understand the emotions of the character.
If the movie fails in one thing, it's at the very beginning. The set up for the grand scheme of the plot is not very well thought out, and a little awkwardly executed. While on paper the idea of Jack Black's character becoming magnetized and demagnetizing every movie in a video store looks great on paper (and does make for a few hilariously great slapstick moments), the execution of him becoming magnetized is even a little too quirky for this quirky comedy and throws off the pacing for a few moments near the early parts of the movie. Gondry quickly gets back on track though, but at the same time the movie feels a little cramped with everything he's trying to throw at you. The movie is filled with a lot of great ideas, and at times it can feel a little cramped with everything that's been put in there.
All in all, I would highly recommend the movie, and this is definitely a movie that takes more than one viewing to fully appreciate it. At a time when everything being cranked out of Hollywood is either a remake, adaptation, or a sequel this ode to originality is definitely a breath of fresh air.
4/5
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