Cack handed waste of a great idea (Be Kind Rewind (DVD))

Member Name: shaneo632

Product:	Be Kind Rewind (DVD)
Date:	29/07/09 (10 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good cast, great premise

Disadvantages: Buckles under overt sentiment

note: also appears in part on The Student Room

If there's any film I ever wanted to enjoy, and sounded like a complete laugh riot, it's Be Kind Rewind. Quite how they ruined what could have been both a scathing satire and a loving ode to amateur filmmaking, I'm not sure, but by suffocating it with disingenuous sentiment, they've given me some idea.

The film takes place in New Jersey, where Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover)'s video rental store Be Kind Rewind is flailing, thanks to both the onset of DVD technology, and also the local chain rental stores such as Blockbuster eating up all the business. One day however, Mike (Mos Def) is left to run the store whilst Mr. Fletcher goes away for a few days, and soon enough, Jerry (Jack Black), who has recently been trying to sabotage a nearby electrical substation, has become magnetised, and so the second he enters the store, he destroys all of the video tapes. Mike, horrified that Mr. Fletcher really is now done for, is obviously angry at Jerry, but Jerry has a hilarious idea - to refilm all the classics with their own take on things. Thus, with a dusty camera and virtually no budget, they refilm everything from Ghostbusters to Back to the Future. Astoundingly, the local citizens take to it wonderfully, and everything seems to be going fine, until they are hit with a copyright lawsuit, and without the funds to fight it, they're also about to have the house razed. Can they save it from demolition?

The film sadly goes the way of schmaltz by its climax, which is a shame considering Michel Gondry's previously emotionally mature films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep. This never earns its sentiment, and thus feels incredibly contrived.

Michel Gondry expertly squanders a fantastic premise by providing few laughs, stretching logic to untenable lengths, and rendering the advertised premise a mere footnote in this wholly manufactured and untouching community story. The ending, above all else, is contrived, predictable, corny and unsatisfying.

Summary: Not the silly, hilarious ode to films it could have been