Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 21, 1995 TAG: 9501230042
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHERINE REED STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"Clerks" - the cheapo, grainy black-and-white movie about a day in the life of a New Jersey convenience store. It proves there is something strange and unique beneath the homogeneity we have come to know and loathe in modern existence.
It's also very, very funny.
There's nothing special about the main characters - Dante (Brian O'Halloran) and Randal (Jeff Anderson) - who run the convenience/video store somewhere near Asbury Park. And there is nothing very special about the store.
But Dante, who has been called in to work on what is supposed to be his day off, is having an especially terrible day. Someone has stuck gum in the shutter locks, so the store looks half-closed. Dante remedies this by hanging a large sign out front that reads, "I assure you, we are open." (Another hand-written sign on the cash register inside reads, "If you plan to shoplift, let us know.")
Dante's boss is supposed to relieve him at noon so that Dante can go play hockey, but that never happens. Instead, Dante must contend with the usual rabble, including a man in a suit who goes through all of the eggs, one by one, to find the perfect dozen; an elderly man who demands softer toilet paper, a porno magazine and use of the employee restroom; an evangelical smoking opponent with a motive; and a guy who gets his arm stuck in a Pringle's can. "Sometimes you gotta let those hard-to-reach chips go," Dante tells him solemnly.
With customers like these, who needs friends like Randal? He comes to work late and ignores the customers, when he isn't actually spewing water in their faces. Randal also meddles in Dante's complicated love life, embarrasses him at a wake and gets him fined for selling cigarettes to a minor.
He apparently thinks his role as Dante's friend is to keep him from getting comfortable in a job that doesn't begin to demand any of Dante's intelligence or talents, whatever those are.
"Clerks," which won prizes at Sundance and Cannes, looks like a low-budget movie, and it is: It was made for a mere $27,575. And the dialogue is a little on the amateurish side: Words like "leitmotif" roll off Randal's tongue without the character context to support them. Director-writer Kevin Smith made what seems to be a common first-film error: He thought that pushing the pace would make up for some script deficits. The end result is that everyone ends up sounding pretty much the same, with the exception of Caitlin (Lisa Spoonauer), who holds her own.
But even this movie's flaws have charm; there is so much reality in its reality. Yep, it's cheap, vulgar and sometimes downright disgusting. But that's as it should be, and it's a refreshing contrast to so much of the empty, glossy, high-priced trash that Hollywood produces.
Clerks
***
A Miramax Films release playing at The Grandin Theatre. Rated R for awful language and some really disgusting scenarios. 1 hour and 30 minutes.
by CNB