Clerks II

Filipe Manuel Neto

**Despite being an improvement over the previous film, it still has a very stupid style of humor.** When I saw the first “Clerks” movie, I found it quite rude, uninteresting, based on endless and boring dialogues. And I confess that I did not expect anything better here. The film, however, managed to surprise me and give me more than I expected. The action takes place about ten years after the first film (which is correct, the sequel only appeared ten years after the original) and shows how Dante, the central character of this plot, left his hated convenience store to work in a fast food restaurant. He's still not interested in the job, and hates the place, but he's engaged to a blonde beauty who plans to take him to Florida, where her father is going to give them a home. However, whoever is destined to be a Nobody cannot expect many strokes of luck, and he will, in a single day, throw everything away. Of course, Randal, his old buddy, will take his share of the blame for what happens. If the first film failed for having no script, just a succession of intelligent but rude and uninteresting dialogues, this film corrected that flaw and gave the characters a decent story. However, decent does not mean good: although this was a great advance, the film has a huge romantic subplot that seems to have been written on a high school, because it works rather poorly and is unconvincing. Another problem with the film is the quality of most of the characters involved because almost all of them are sketchy, one-dimensional, uninteresting and some of them are just clowns who throw us jokes and more jokes worthy of a military barracks or a college dorm. This leads us to talk about humour! Thought to be the strong point of this film, the comedy is based on scatological, sexual and unhygienic humour. Jokes about poor hygiene in a restaurant or bestiality or several other sexual practices flow freely and abundantly, like a flood in a sewer after a storm. There are also references to other films (Lord of the Rings, Star Wars…), most of which not very complimentary. Anyway! This humor is not only rude, but also stupid. The actors from the previous film (Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Jason Mewes, Kevin Smith) are back for the characters they already know and to do again what they had already done. The big improvement is really from O'Halloran, who showed a better job and talent to do something more challenging and competent. But it's Rosario Dawson who deserves the most attention: her character is convincing, likable and smarter than the rest, while still being funny when she wants to be (brain and humor go hand in hand, take note, director Kevin Smith). Ben Affleck also appears here, in a short, uninteresting and forgettable cameo. Truly pitiful is Trevor Fehrman's performance… he wasn't an actor, he didn't go beyond the most pathetic silliness.