Be Kind Rewind
A Review by Nick Peron
If at first you looked at the title of the movie I'm writing a review of and though "Why the hell are you reviewing a mainstream movie that stars Jack Black?" then you probably think this is just another Jack Black comedy that is being pumped out by the mega-conglomorate movie houses. And I don't blame you, because that's the way they've been marketing it. And while I find the juvenile comedy of Jack Black amusing, it would hardly be something worth reviewing. This movie is anything but. I went in expecting that it would be just another Jack Black movie, but I was pleasantly surprised and actually amazed that a company like New Line Cinema would allow someone to make a movie like this and release it through them, but hey, they did.
Anyway, what's the plot to this one? Well it revolves around the owner of a video store that still rents out VHS tapes called Be Kind Rewind that is housed in the building that is supposedly the birthplace of Jazz musician Fats Waller. When the owner, Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) goes on vacation (really going out to check out this new thing he's heard about called "DVD") he leaves the store in the charge of his lone employee, Mike (Mos Def.) Before he goes he tells Mike one thing: Whatever you do, don't let Jerry into the store. Jerry (Jack Black) is the paranoid guy who lives in a trailer down the street who lives next to the power plant and thinks the government is spying on him. One night while trying to sabotage the power plant (which, according to Jerry, is what the government is using to brainwash people) Jerry is jolted with electricity that turns him into a human magnet. When he enters the store he accidentally erases all the VHS tapes. Caught between a rock and a hard place, the two are hard pressed when regular customer Miss Falwicz wants to rent the movie Ghostbusters
Before they know it, what they begin to call "Sweeded" (because they're apparently imported from Sweden) and everybody wants to rent these special versions of these movies (Which even though everyone learns are being filmed right in town, they still want to rent.) Oh and just so that we're keeping pace with the movie, the town wants to tear down the building the video store is located in so they can build condos, the only way out is if they manage to bring up to code before the deadline.
As they make more "Sweeded" movies, Mr. Fletcher comes back and soon sees the great sensation that they're making with these "new" movies, and they soon put the scheme into a way of raising the money to bring the building up to code. This plan almost works until lawyers representing various movie studios comes to stop their unauthorized bootlegs of the film and has everything destroyed and seizes all the money.
With such a downer, and the truth about the house not being the historical birth place of Fats Waller, the towns people rally together to make their own movie: Telling an unofficial history of the historical jazz musician. They then play it for everybody on the last night that Mr. Fletcher has the property. The movie is not only a success with the people, but with everybody outside who happens to see it.
The movie, ends without any resolution over what will become of Mr. Fletcher's video store or the building it's located in, opting to have an open ending leaving what may happen next to speculation.
The movie while going a little over-kill with the mushy heart-felt community knitting, is entertaining, and surprisingly a great movie. It's a movie that seems to have some roots in independent filmmaking in spite of the fact that it's being distributed by a major movie house.
It has an adequate amount of the expected Jack Black humor, however it isn't the central focus of the movie, so if you're going to see it on that pretense (like the hundreds of vapid teenagers that were in the theater watching it with me on opening night) then you're going to be sorely disappointed.
There are a lot of great messages in this film, the first and obvious one was the suggestion that when it comes to art, it belongs to the people, not major corporations, and that is something we should all try to remember in these trying times where corporate lawsuits are springing up because the major companies no longer have the control over their properties that they'd like.
The other great message that that this movie has is that if you can do it yourself. That you can entertain people with your own creations. That you don't need a billion dollar budget. That maybe that the most important people you could ever entertain, are those closest to you.
And most importantly, be original, and make your own creative work, and don't ever be afraid to express yourself no matter what odds you face. Granted most of us don't have to worry about our homes being torn down or being sued by multimillion dollar corporations, but it's still a valid lesson to learn. Fuck, if the asshole who made Slaughtered Vomit Dolls can embrace that, then so can you.
The last thing that I liked about this movie was how they chose to end it, and that takes a lot of balls. There was a lot of sugar coating in the film, and a lot of fuzzy wuzzy crap but it took some balls to have the film end without a conclusive ending. Is the building going to be torn down? What's going to happen to the characters? I'm glad they focused more on the sense of community you can find than some piddly wish-fulfillment ending that wouldn't happen in real life (not that this movie really cements itself there what with the whole magnetic pee thing they put it in the plot, but I digress...)
One thing that I would hope is that people will see the brilliance that this movie has, sure it's corny, but it's a great movie. I can see if this thing catches on that places like YouTube will be inundated with "Sweeded" movies that were inspired by this film. One can only hope, because at least some people would have gotten at least some of the point of the movie.
Anyway, Be Kind Rewind is a cute little movie, I'd recommend you go out and see it, you might just like it. Wow, and I just realized I wrote a whole review and only said the f-word once.
