I should say first that I am about to wholeheartedly support the world viewing Be Kind Rewind in the face of what I believe will be a lot of poopooing over this movie (it’s currently “rotten” over at Rotten Tomatoes). I will also say I am not a Michel Gondry fanboy or, even, somebody who could pass for a hipster (that segment of the population making Wes Anderson, Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze and Puma economically viable). I saw Be Kind Rewind at Sundance 2008 thinking it would be a pallet cleanser from long nights of editing interviews and watching the really challenging stuff. But Be Kind Rewind was the most subversive movie at Sundance this year. So much so, I question the programmers even knew it.
The premise is straight from a sub-genre of comedy that has brought us such classics as Ski Patrol and One Crazy Summer (a perfect ball of ice cream for Gondry to hide his medicine in). Two slackers who while away their days in a hole-in-the-wall hangout–owned by a kindly old proprietor–have to raise more cash than they’ve ever seen or the hangout gets the wrecking ball. Antics ensue. The antics are brought to us by Jerry (Jack Black) and Mike (Mos Def) as they remake a library of hit Hollywood movies with a VHS camcorder when Jack Black inadvertently erases all the tapes at their neighborhood video shop (the hangout). The montages of their backyard productions are the stuff people will go to see this movie in droves for, and they are fall-down funny. However, these montages end partway through the story to make room for the proverbial “plot.”
