# Mallrats (1995)

### reviewed by
Berge Garabedian

    MALLRATS
    RATING:  6 / 10 --> Barely recommendable

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Kevin Smith follows up the insane success that he had with his first film CLERKS (8.5/10), which incidentally he had personally financed for about $27,000, with a $6Million Disney financed pop-cultured-teenage-boys-wet-dream movie starring the 90210-famed Shannon Doherty and skateboard sensation Jason Lee. This movie features everything from video games, comic books, movie references and GenX-based thoughts and dialogue, to early roles by big Ben Affleck and Claire "I'm working with Brad Pitt now" Forlani. All that, and clean boob shots of both CHASING AMY (7.5/10) star Joey Lauren Adams and Terri from TV "Three's Company". Wow, what a man!

PLOT: Best friends Brodie and T.S. both get dumped by their girlfriends on the same day, and attempt to rejuvenate their lives by spending another empty day in the nearby mall. The mall gives them plenty of time to run into friends, trouble and get arrested, as their plans to win back their girlfriends begin to crystallize.

CRITIQUE: Excellent written dialogue, plotless plot, and sporadically weak acting qualify this film as a mediocre overly-juvenile teenage addition to the umpteen better films made in its very homage. I will be absolutely honest with you, and tell you that I hate to not love this movie because I am actually a huge personal Kevin Smith fan, but I cannot pretend that I enjoyed this flick much more than I really did. I will admit that as per Kevin's usual style, his dialogue was impeccably written, but spoken at too fast a pace by many of its actors, with too many inside jokes for anyone to grasp within that time. Add that to the fact that the Jay and Silent Bob roles seemed written just for the sake of physical gags, and I can't say that this follow-up to the film that inspired me to take my personal screenwriting seriously (CLERKS) is worthy of much more than a late Sunday afternoon rent session. Although the scene with the boys and the Easter Bunny is to die for!

Having said that, I did love the acting job by Jason Lee, who seemed to relish his role of Brodie with great anger and furious appreciation. You could tell that he really loved his delivering his lines, like one of my favorite exchanges between him and his girlfriend Shannon Doherty:

Doherty: "I've never met a person who lives in as much fear of his mother as you do." Lee: "You want I should tell my mother what we do in here at night?" Doherty: "What...that you play video games and I fall asleep unfulfilled?"

Classic Smith. Having said that, I thought the other main character in the film as portrayed by Jeremy London was boring and played rather unsuccessfully by said London. Forlani was also poor in her role as the "always looking nervous" girlfriend, while Affleck pulled off his dance as the macho A-hole magnificently. Now, despite the film having plenty of funny lines, it did also contain many duds, while others seemed scripted or just too literate to be uttered by the dudes in this film. Having said all that, I did enjoy most of the lines, and the boatload of movie homages (Off the top of my head, there were tender pokes at JAWS, BATMAN, GODFATHER, STAR WARS, APOCALYPSE NOW, and many others....) but was eventually bored by the ultimately anti-climactic dating game show ending, and the lack of consistency in the movie. Fans of Kevin Smith should check it out for fun, but others should watch it only if they enjoy well-written dialogue, comic books and movie references galore! Otherwise, get out there and rent one of the funniest and best-written films of all time...CLERKS!!!

Little Known Facts about this film and its stars: Kevin Smith once personally helped me get going with one of my scripts in Hollywood. On top of being a cinematic genius, the man is also a generous human being. What else could you ask for? Kevin Smith had auditioned over 600 hopefuls for the role of Brandi, before he saw Claire Forlani. He was immediately taken with her spot-on impersonation of a callow American youth, and promptly offered to hire her. Only after they'd sealed the deal did he learn that the actress whose mannerisms and delivery had so impressed him was British. This film was shot on location in the Eden Prairie Center in Minnesota. Producer Scott Mosier played a character named Roddy in this film. Ethan Suplee, the fat kid who can never seem to see the images within those 3D pictures, also starred as the fat skinhead in 1998's fine motion picture AMERICAN HISTORY X (8/10). The two main characters are named Brodie and Quint, an obvious reference to 1975's JAWS (7.5/10). The background music when T.S. and Hamilton are waiting for the elevator is the same as in the elevator in THE BLUES BROTHERS. T.S. Quint's initials were taken from T.S. Garp, the character Robin Williams played in THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP (6/10). It was soon after this film that Kevin Smith and Joey Lauren Adams started going out. Their relationship ended soon after the release of CHASING AMY (7.5/10), in which she starred. Kevin Smith thanks a lot of people at the end of this movie, but here are some of my favorites:

"God- for another opportunity to tell my stupid stories." "Jim- (producer James Jacks) for treating us like the Coens as opposed to the twenty-something know-nothings we really are." "Bob- (Miramax co-chairman Bob Weinstein) for laughing during the pitch." And lastly..."John Landis and John Hughes- for giving me something to do throughout my youth on Friday nights."

    Review Date:         November 21, 1998
    Director:                Kevin Smith
    Writer:                 Kevin Smith
    Producer:         James Jacks, Scott Mosier and Sean Daniel
    Actors:                 Jason Lee as Brodie
                    Shannon Doherty as Rene
                    Jeremy London as T.S. Quint
                    Claire Forlani as Brandi Svenning
                    Michael Rooker as Mr. Jared Svenning
    Genre:                 Comedy
    Year of Release:         1995Visit JoBlo's Movie Emporium
    http://surf.to/joblo(c) 1998 Berge Garabedian

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