Movie Review : Clerks III (2022)
In 2006, American film director Kevin Smith decided to make a sequel to his seminal movie Clerks to save his career after the Jersey Girl fiasco. Commercially and creatively, it worked well enough and the decision inadvertently allowed him to explore his own feelings about adulthood, maturity and whatever he was going through at the time. I don't think it's a coincidence we get another chapter of Clerks right after the worst fucking movie of Smith's career. But Clerks III is here and it's… kind of OK?
But only kind of.
In this third chapter of the epic journey at the heart of New Jersey’s service industry, we find best friends Dante Hicks (Brian O'Halloran) and Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson) right where we left them fifteen years ago. The blissful stillness of their lives is disturbed one day by Randal having a sudden heart attack right in front of the Quick Stop Counter. With a new lease on life, he decides to start making a movie about his best friend and him. But exploring the past will reveal to be painful for Dante.
The part that's kind of cringe
The premise of Clerks III is based on Kevin Smith's own experience. He suffered a heart attack in 2018, which changed his life and inspired this second return to the View Askewniverse. So, Clerks III is about the emotional process of making Clerks III, except it features Randal making Clerks instead. Clerks is a symbolic stand-in for Clerks III and it shamelessly panders to your nostalgia. Smith basically made a film for himself, which he crammed with references to appeal to his audience.
You've read well: Clerks III is metafiction. I don't have any problem with this, except that Dante is kind of starring in his own parallel movie and that movie isn't a metafictional comedy. Dante Hicks has always been somewhat of a Nick Carraway type of character who exists to chronicle the beauty and magic of the world around him, but if you want him to work he needs to lead the show. In Clerks III, he's going through his own thing and it drains the fun away from the fart jokes.
I understand that this movie is about mortality. About facing your own and also learning to let go of lost ones and carry on. But the part about facing your own feels genuinely Smith-ian and the other feels like a loose end from Clerks II if you know what I mean. It's difficult to take Dante's emotions seriously (and it's not for lack of Brian O'Halloran trying. He's doing his best) when the movie is not about them. If the guy is going through some shit, make it an obstacle for Randal's movie to overcome, you know?
Clerks III is kind of cringe because it's half a metafictional comedy and half a Hallmark channel drama.
The part that's kind of great
Now, Clerks III is the first Kevin Smith movie that genuinely reconnects with the original spirit that made them great in the first place since… well, Clerks II. Kevin Smith movies are great because they're a safe space where you can burn through meaningless time and bullshit with characters that also have nothing better to do. They're a secret language you share with friends or even strangers, where there's an implicit understanding that nothing's serious and that being a dick on purpose is funny.
Clerks III captures this. The characters are fun, bored and most important, together. Some of the jokes are a little on the nose (Randal's monologue about Gen Z and Crypto), but Kevin Smith aptly surfs the line between good-hearted callbacks and razor sharp one liners better than he's done over a decade. Randal's preoccupation with his small dick on his hospital bed was a particularly funny, modern take on the character. It's fun to see him vulnerable like that.
It's a weird thing to say, but Clerks III is at its best when the characters don't have anything to do. When they're just spitballing together and being themselves. Over the years, the Quick Stop became just an excuse for them to be together. An existential purgatory away from the ever hastening modernization of the world that reveals Dante, Randal, Jay, Bob and Elias and the others to themselves. There's some of that in Clerks III, which is great. I just wish there was more of it.
*
I'm a Kevin Smith completist, so I was compelled to watch Clerks III. This is very much a movie aimed at people who share this interest in Smith's cinema and not that many more people. He's circled the wagon a long time ago and doesn't want any more people interested in what he does. I can't say it was a good movie in good conscience, but…. kind of? It's the most good-natured and least tone deaf thing he's done in year. If this is the swan song for the View Askewniverse, it’d be a succesful one.
Kind of.
