Despite his many attempts to break into the mainstream, writer and director Kevin Smith has always worked best when he keeps his films small and personal. Maybe that’s why it pains me so much to say that ‘Clerks III’ is an astounding mess of a film. What should be his most personal film to date is actually a muddled mess of ideas that never fully pay off.
Thirteen years after the events of ‘Clerks II’, we find our listless slacker heroes, Dante (Brian O’Halloran) and Randal (Jeff Anderson), still working the counter at the Quick Stop convenience store. They’re older, greyer and more wrinkled, but the store itself looks like it’s been preserved in a time capsule straight out of 1994. The conversations, too, remain the same as the boys continue aimlessly dissecting pop-culture over the counter. After a casual bout of verbal sparring with Elias (Trevor Fehrmann), Randal collapses, suffering a near fatal heart attack mirroring Kevin Smith’s real life tragic near death experience from a few years back.
Having survived the operating table, Randal comes to a grim realization of just how little he has done with his life and begins to fret about whether he even had a life worth saving. He laments that all he has done with his life is sit around and watch movies. Dante casually remarks that he always thought that Randal could make a good movie. This sets off a light bulb in Randal’s head and becomes the impetus for him to make his very own movie recounting his life story working at the Quick Stop.
‘Clerks III’ spends most of its time having Dante and Randal remake ‘Clerks’ within the film. This is not necessarily new ground for Kevin Smith. This premise alone instantly recalls his ill-fated box office disappointment ‘Zack and Miri Make a Porno.’ Which itself was a riff on the excellent making-of ‘Clerks’ documentary, ‘The Snowball Effect.’
Much like ‘T2 Trainspotting’ from a few years back, ‘Clerks III’ relies heavily on playing into nostalgia. It is a film that is very much concerned with reliving Smith’s former glory days. Whereas ‘T2 Trainspotting’ had a certain bittersweet lament as it examined its own heavy sense of nostalgia through a critical lens. ‘Clerks III’ plays its nostalgia mostly for warmth and fondness. That would have been fine had the movie been funny, which, sadly, it isn’t.
Most of the second act is spent watching Dante and Randal as they go about making their own version of ‘Clerks’. These scenes go on for far too long and feel like constant reminders that the audience should be watching the actual ‘Clerks’ instead. It was cute at first to revisit the now aged faces that made up the small cast of the original movie, but it all wears thin very quickly as it never provides any greater insight.
It also further highlights one of the many problems with ‘Clerks III’ as nothing in this film seems to go anywhere. Dante’s old flame, Veronica (Marilyn Ghigliotti), shows up for a scene that could have hit the cutting room floor and wouldn't have been missed. As for Dante’s wife, Becky (Rosario Dawson), it seems that Smith went to the school of 'Alien 3' as it is revealed in the opening act that she died in a car crash straight after the events of ‘Clerks II.’
This becomes the thrust of Dante’s dilemma, as he struggles to deal with the untimely loss of both his wife and unborn child. Dawson does show up briefly in ghostly form, allowing for Dante and Becky to share a couple of what should be touching scenes on paper. Sadly, O’Halloran’s lack of range lets these scenes down as they border on being unintentionally comedic.
‘Clerks III’ struggles to find a good balance between sentiment and unfiltered blue comedy. Considering where this film goes in its final act, I should have been sobbing like a baby given the fate of Dante. Sure, it's a bold choice but it's completely unearned. Worse still, it all felt emotionally manipulative. The film struggles to find its footing dramatically speaking, but an even greater sin it commits is that it’s seemingly terrified of offending anyone. What made the original ‘Clerks’ memorable was its irreverence..
It was a film about blue-collar schlubs having lewd, crude and unfiltered conversations in an effort to kill time at a monotonous job. ‘Clerks’ was made by a kid in his twenties who didn’t know any better. Because of this, that unfiltered raw voice was what made it a staple of its generation. That unharnessed voice was what made ‘Clerks’ doggedly funny and refreshingly honest.
‘Clerks III’ brings nothing new to the table, further confirming that Smith is completely out of touch with these characters. The truth is, he is no longer that same guy he used to be. He’s older and far more sentimental, but he’s still trying to write for characters that he won't allow to grow up. As is evident by Dante's reset, it's almost like Smith is afraid to allow these characters to change with the times. Much the same problem he had writing for the slackers of ‘Zack and Miri’; it feels dishonest in its voice. Most notably with Randal.
As much as I’ve enjoyed Jeff Anderson’s portrayal of Randal in the past, the character is only as strong as Smith’s writing allows him to be. Even Anderson will himself confess to not being much of an actor. Despite the claim that this is a film about Randal getting his shit together, it never lets us get to know him any better. That is a real shame, as there is that beautiful moment in 'Clerks II' where he drops the armor and reveals a hint of vulnerability at the threat of losing Dante to Florida. Oh, what could have been if Smith had built on top of that?
Burdened with the same mullet that he has had since
1994, the script never allows Randal to grow as a person. Nor does he
come into his own as the director of the film within the film. Despite
the life-threatening ordeal he endured, he’s still the same one-note
cynical asshole that he always was.
There are no new memorable conversations to speak of. Instead, the humor relies on a bunch of meta jokes and callbacks that only super-fans will get. I can take only so much of Smith’s prodding before I tire of it. All it did was confirm that Kevin has become that annoying, out-of-touch Uncle who constantly pokes you and reminds you how funny he used to be.
When ‘Clerks III’ was first announced, I had a lot of trepidation about revisiting these characters for the third time. ‘Clerks II’ did a great job of taking the angry young men and plunging them head first into adulthood as they became the masters of their destiny. I didn’t believe much more needed to be said about Dante and Randal. But I was still willing to give ‘Clerks III’ a shot, hoping it would be a return to form for Smith.
Instead, it’s every bit as bad as I feared and then some. The drama doesn’t work. The comedy is just lame and desperate. Its message regarding the nature of life and death is incredibly tone deaf. Worse still, it regresses these characters as it throws most of the progress made from the previous installment out the window.
Its visuals are flat and uninspired. Granted, Smith has never been the most dynamic of visual storytellers, but he wasn’t this bad in the past. Everything looks overlit and flat. It does feel like he has regressed in every possible way. And as for that ending? It is one of the most self-defeatist things I’ve seen on screen all year. So much so that it made me question whether or not Smith is still suffering from post-coronary depression.
The trouble with ‘Clerks III’ is that it feels like it has something it wants to say but never figures it out. It has death and nostalgia weighing heavily on the mind, but it’s almost like Smith is too afraid to confront that side of himself. Instead, he relies on lame callbacks and half-baked melodrama instead of facing and working through his fears on camera.
In trade interviews, Smith said that he wanted this film to help inspire people to take charge of their life. I can’t say I felt inspired; instead, I just felt a bitter sting of emptiness as the film ends on a dour note of loss and regret. I get that this is a personal story for Smith, given his near brush with death a few years back, but he survived that ordeal to live another day. He not only survived, but he also did exceptionally well changing his lifestyle for the better. So why is he so obsessed with having his characters succumb to a lifetime of failure?
‘Clerks III’ is a muddled mess of ideas that never really come together in any meaningful way. It’s more in love with the idea of being a shrine to Smith’s past than finding what he wants to say regarding death and nostalgia. If I want to relive the past, I’ll stick to re-watching the original and far superior ‘Clerks’ instead.
-Daniel M
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