Be Kind Rewind is a charming picture about filmmaking all dressed up as a comedy. Exaggerated and wonderfully silly, the movie concerns hilarious amateur movie-making -- but sneaks in a message about community and the transformative power of art.
Jerry (Jack Black) and Mike (Mos Def) are buddies in Passaic, N.J.. Neither is the sharpest knife in the drawer, but they are lifelong friends. Their lives are centred around the Be Kind Rewind Video and Thrift shop.
The shop is part of a building where blues great Fats Waller is said to have been born, but the city fathers have plans to rebuild the whole block and put the video-shop owner (Danny Glover) out of business.
While the owner is away, Jerry has an accident that causes him to inadvertently erase all of the video tapes in the shop. One pesky customer (Mia Farrow) threatens to tell on the boys for their inept business sense; to shut her up, they quickly create their version of the movie she wants to rent: Ghostbusters. As an intro to the gleeful nonsense that's about to follow, Mos Def instructs Jack Black on how the movie-making will go. "I'm Bill Murray," he says. "You're everybody else."
If you have no interest in filmmaking, Be Kind Rewind is simply a brilliant comedy about a couple of buddies who flourish in the world of creativity. If you do have an interest in filmmaking, the carry-on in this movie is ingenious. To make their movies, 20-minute recreations that include Robocop, The Lion King, Rush Hour 2 and Driving Miss Daisy, the guys get involved in their version of special effects, fight scenes, makeup, complicated costumes and animation. It is beyond daffy.
The collaborative element of filmmaking comes out in their eventual recruiting of dozens of friends and video-store customers to be in the films, a gesture that brings comic genius Melonie Diaz (and even Sigourney Weaver, as a copyright lawyer) into the story. The action is absurd and absolutely delightful, and what began in desperation soon develops into wild enthusiasm. Everybody around Jerry and Mike wants to be involved in making these movies.
There isn't too much on the big screen these days that you would call new or inventive, but Be Kind Rewind is a truly fresh comedy, a rare commodity indeed.
The innocence of the characters and the movies they choose to make suggest that the film is a nostalgic valentine to a recent era in filmmaking; since Jack Black throws up more than once in the picture, we assume that director Michel Gondry is also offering an opinion on the current state of film.
Just a thought.
(This film is rated PG)
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