Be Kind Rewind

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Summary:
An ailing VHS video store is about to be closed down and relocated. The owner Mr. Fletcher goes away for a while, and simple-minded Mike takes over. His friend Jerry gets electrocuted and turns into a super-magnet, erasing all the VHS rentals. In a desperate attempt to not get in trouble with Mr. Fletcher they start to make their own versions of the rentals in the store.
Soon, the whole town becomes interested in these new versions of movies being made.

Review:
Be Kind Rewind fails in more areas than it succeeds. I was hoping that this would work as well as Eternal Sunshine, and not turn into a horribly pretentious and messy pile of shit like The Science of Sleep. Gondry's visionary fingerprint is apparent in this one as well. However, there's more supernatural than there should be (electrocuting Jerry and turning him into a super-magnet?) considering that 90% of the movie maintains a certain level of disbelief, with a few moments where that silliness is jacked up 50 notches. They could have found a much more appropriate means of forcing these guys to start making home movies that would fit better with the context of this movie's reality.
Mos Def is great, but he plays another simple mind, much like he did in 16 Blocks. I liked him more in The Woodsman. Jack Black is ok overall, but the screenplay could use a lot of work to help flesh out these characters to seem more human. Instead, the entire cast comes across as a vehicle for events to unfold in a story. I wasn't inspired emotionally at any point.

It takes a while for these two to finally get down and start making their own movies. Before this happens, there's a paper thin plot set up to establish the need for them to start filming flicks. Their first production, Ghostbusters, was pretty funny to watch. Afterwards, there were some very imaginative displays of set design and home made drama that has Gondry's work written all over it. I just wasn't getting that many laughs.
Soon the whole town starts asking for more of these home movies, and then the overly sappy and unrealistic melodrama starts setting in. They have 6 weeks to make enough money to not get the building demolished. So of COURSE, it's at the "one week left" mark that a monkeywrench gets thrown into their plans. Sigourney Weaver's cameo was pretty damned pointless except for one reason; to force the plot for that final act.
From one disjointed and weakly prepared scenario to the next, Be Kind is too kind for its own good. Especially in the final 20 minutes, where the happy-sappy meter goes from "over-the-top" to "Fuck Me In The Ass This Sucks!" I can't describe how bad the final 15 minutes of this movie is for me. It only got worse and worse as the minutes ticked by as well. I wanted to cry. It started to really suck when the piano theme kicked in during the viewing of the final film. And it got worse and worse. The final straw on the camel's back was the last TWO minutes. I was hoping for a big explosion that would blow everyone away.

Be Kind Rewind is better than Gondry's previous flick The Science of Sleep, but it's nothing like the genius that was Eternal Sunshine. There were some pretty good laughs for the first half, but the characterization was underwritten, the storyline puerile and paper-thin, with a powerfully disappointing final act. This is after it was barely holding itself together from one cutesy-pie and moderately passable scene of mediocracy to another. I guess it could have been worse, but damned if it couldn't have been a LOT better.

GRADE:  D+

Reviewed: 2/22/08