By J.E.
I’m not that big on comedies, preferring instead to watch anything in the action, suspense, or drama genres instead. But I do enjoy Jack Black’s work for the most part, so I usually try to catch his films on DVD if I happen to miss the theater run. That’s exactly what happened with Be Kind Rewind, in which Black co-starred with Mos Def and Danny Glover. I’d actually heard some good reviews about this movie, so I was looking forward to renting it. Unfortunately, I thought the whole thing was a bore.
Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Elroy Fletcher (Danny Glover) is the owner of a small video store named Be Kind Rewind. He likes to talk about the rich history of the building and the neighborhood to whoever will listen — mostly his lone employee Mike (Mos Def) and Mike’s kooky friend Jerry (Jack Black). That history is one of the reasons Elroy refuses to sell out, even though he only has a few loyal customers left. Time waits for no one, however, so it’s no surprise to learn that the city council is pressuring Elroy to do something with the property. If he can’t come up with $60,000 to rehab it and bring it up to code, the city will sell it to a developer.
When Elroy leaves town to take care of some personal business, he puts Mike in charge of the store. The only instruction Elroy gives is to keep Jerry out of Be Kind Rewind, but of course Mike has trouble following that order. Jerry comes in one day after having been magnetized by a freak accident at a power plant, and ends up erasing all of the tapes in the store. Mike panics, especially since Elroy’s No. 1 customer, Miss Falewicz comes in demanding to rent Ghostbusters for the day. Mike puts her off with an excuse, but she says they better have the tape ready before closing time — or she’ll tell Elroy what’s going on.
Mike tries locating a copy of Ghostbusters on VHS, a task that proves impossible since everyone watches DVDs. So he comes up with an alternative solution: He and Jerry will film their own version of Ghostbusters and pass it on to Miss Falewicz. She’s never seen the movie, so she won’t know the difference. They do this, and it actually works.
Miss Falewicz passes the tape on to her nephew and his friends, and they like the film too, saying that it’s even better than the original since it’s a lot shorter. Soon, Mike and Jerry are fielding requests from a bunch of different customers, so they end up recording their own versions of popular movies like Rush Hour 2, The Lion King, Robocop, and Driving Miss Daisy.
The rest of the film then deals with some unforeseen consequences of Mike and Jerry’s venture, including a copyright infringement lawsuit that ends up bringing the neighborhood together in an overwhelming show of support for Be Kind Rewind.
My Reaction: This movie sucked! I’m sorry; I usually try to voice my opinions about films a bit more elegantly than this, but this was honestly my very first thought. Act I dragged on interminably, and the whole premise was just too far out there to be believed.
Although I’ve never studied film, I’ve watched enough movies and read enough reviews and interviews from professionals to know a few things about the craft. For instance, most people generally agree that the basic premise of the movie ought to be revealed within the first 15 minutes of screen time. That’s about how long a typical viewer will wait to see what the story is about. By that point, we should know who the main characters are and what they’re after. I know this is not a hard-and-fast rule, and I’m certainly not advocating a cookie-cutter approach to screenwriting here. I’m just going with what the standard seems to be.
But with Be Kind Rewind, the premise wasn’t unveiled until the 25-minute mark — which was just far too long for me to sit on my couch wondering what the hell the movie was about. For the first 25 minutes, all we got was Mike and Jerry acting like total goofballs. The scenes were boring and dragged on forever. Plus, at that point, viewers weren’t given any reason to care about the characters or sympathize with their goals (because the goals hadn’t been revealed yet), so it was extremely difficult to stay focused on the film.
Things didn’t get much better after the 25-minute mark either. I’ve read a few comments about how Be Kind Rewind was trying to send a message about the importance of movies and the way art can bring a community together, but frankly, I didn’t care for the presentation of the message.
Overall, I was highly disappointed with Be Kind Rewind and can’t believe the positive reviews it has received. To each his own, I guess. I give the film just 2.5 stars out of 10.
