Every year after the Oscar rush is over I breathe a sigh of relief. Sure, I like a disturbing drama or a heartwarming character-based comedy as much as anyone, but all serious films are just that - serious. When spring rolls around I'm looking for the cinematic equivalent of a deep-fried Twinkie, a movie whose DVD box will never be tainted with the distracting clutter of "Three Oscar Nominations" in bold letters or the Cannes laurels, a film which, dare to dream, may even receive the honor of a Razzie. Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind looked like it would fit the bill. With the promise of the antics of the illustrious Jack Black and a parody of Back to the Future, I was ready to be sold.
The premise was a great one- take two wacky best friends Jerry (Black) and Mike (Mos Def), put them in a ramshackle video rental place in Jersey with only VHS in stock, erase all the tapes, throw in Danny Glover for good measure, push the chaos button, then sit back, relax and watch the quirky and slightly insane duo remake comedy and action classics.
The problem, which became obvious within the first 10 minutes, is that you can't just skip right to the movie parodies, but you have to make at least an attempt to set it up in some way. So here's the set up: after an ill-conceived plan to destroy a power plant he believes is controlling his mind, Jack Black becomes radioactive, touches all of the tapes in the store, and in doing so erases all of them. In order to save their business, Mike and Jerry remake many of the films in the store using some friends and a handheld video camera. Confusing and bizarre, yes, but this is not the problem. Give me a non-sequitur plot any day, and I'm intrigued. Tell me it's painfully stupid, and I'm buying my tickets. But for God's sake, make it funny. This just wasn't funny.
It would be wrong to say that the film was devoid of humor. Jack Black managed to work some laugh-out-loud moments, as he always seems to do. The remakes of the films were actually really entertaining, particularly the initial Ghostbusters sequence, which was mostly taped in the local library and featured a mechanic friend in drag and a cat "ghost." Another funny "remake" was the take on Driving Miss Daisy where white becomes black and male becomes female with some very "emotional" outcomes. I hadn't seen a lot of the movies they redid and I was still able to enjoy it; I just wish that this aspect of the film took up more than a cumulative 20 minutes.
Perhaps the reason why the core comedy of the movie was cut so short was that the Gondry had some sort of message to deliver. The other facet of the otherwise humorous story is the conflict between The Man (ah, remember Jack Black's vendetta against The Man in School of Rock?), represented by West Coast Video, a Blockbuster-like conglomerate, a copyright protection agent (Sigourney Weaver) and anyone else who buys or rents DVDs. Of course, Jerry and Mike are the good-hearted protagonists who value the community and live modestly by refusing to move past the analog era. I won't say who wins, but I will say that the climax was so sickeningly heartwarming that I felt as if I'd just been forced to hug Dick Cheney. Ew.
Ironically, this film would likely be better if it were remade in 20 minutes and put on YouTube. The movie parodies actually had the feeling of a great video you might find on online, and maybe Gondry cooked up the idea for Be Kind Rewind in the spirit of the YouTube phenomenon. Whatever his intentions, the lesson to be learned here is that what might be a well above par five-minute procrastination viewing is pretty hard to stretch out over the length of a feature film. Now excuse me while I go seek some comic relief in Meet the Spartans.
