Smith returns to form with ‘Clerks II’

In theaters

CLERKS II, written and directed by Kevin Smith, rated R, 98 minutes.

Perhaps it’s best to pretend that Kevin Smith’s last film, “Jersey Girl,” never hit the screen. It wouldn’t be difficult to do. For many, the pretending began soon after the movie’s 2004 release.

“Jersey Girl” was Smith’s most grown-up film to date, to try something new and attempt to move beyond the comic book fantasy world in which he thrived. The problem was that in trying something new, he ended up producing what so many in the business were busy producing – a safe, bland drama with no ideas, no edge, no shape that was designed to appeal to the broadest possible audience.

In a word – boo.

Considering where he has taken us over the course of his career, from “Clerks” to “Chasing Amy,” “Dogma” to “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” the idea that Smith wanted to be on his best behavior in “Jersey Girl” was as unnatural as a stripper in a nun’s habit. For Smith, the clothes didn’t fit – and the movie didn’t work.

Now, Smith’s fans will be happy to know that the politically incorrect button-pushing is back in the director’s new movie, “Clerks II,” a sharp, smart return to raunchy form that picks up 12 years after its famed predecessor became an underground hit.

Once again, the film stars Brian O’Halloran and Jeff Anderson as Dante and Randal, two aimless friends, now 33, who literally are jarred out of the rhythmic safety of their longtime jobs at the Quick Stop convenience store when Dante arrives to find the place engulfed in flames.

With the store toast, the duo – shaken out of their comfort zones – moves on to the equally dead-end fast-food restaurant Mooby’s. There, the specialty is Cow Pie, Dante becomes an assistant manager, and Randal, when not busy shucking food, keeps busy by picking on creepy co-worker Elias (Trevor Fehrman, wonderful), or launching into a myriad of rants that push this film beyond the limits of its R rating.

Working effortlessly in a subplot is Rosario Dawson in a winning performance as Becky, manager of Mooby’s, who has developed a friendship with Dante that could become much more if he weren’t engaged to Emma Bunting (Smith’s real-life wife, Jennifer Schwalbach).

Outside the restaurant, it’s a familiar foul world with Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith) busy selling dope while startling the screen with the occasional moment of horror, such as when Jay plays nude homage to Jaime Gumm, the serial killer in “Silence of the Lambs.” At my screening, it laid the audience flat.

But so did so much of the movie. Raunch only works well if there is an undercurrent of substance at hand to lift the bottom feeding. “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” did this well, and now so does “Clerks II,” a movie that has no problem plunging into the messy depths of bestiality while also, somehow, generating a groundswell of affection for the characters understandably dumbstruck by it.

Grade: B+

On HD DVD

WE WERE SOLDIERS, written and directed by Randall Wallace, 138 minutes, rated R.

Based on the best-selling book by Lt. Gen. Harold Moore and journalist Joseph Galloway, the movie, just out on high definition HD DVD, stars Mel Gibson as Moore, a happily married father of five who has been chosen to lead the First Battalion of the Seventh Cavalry – the same regiment as Custer – into the Ia Drang Valley. But without proper preparation or intelligence, he and his 400 men are quickly overwhelmed and outnumbered by thousands of enemy troops.

Mirroring its contemporary, “Black Hawk Down,” “Soldiers'” tone darkens as each man realizes that few will come away with their lives.

After a heavy-handed opening that bursts with sentiment, the film digs in to become an extremely graphic war movie that sends audiences deep into the hell of the battlefield while showing both sides of the fight.

With skill and finesse, director Randall Wallace makes audiences feel every bullet and every bomb as it tears into every body. His battle scenes are superbly handled, so hyper-realistic that blood literally spatters on the camera lens in two separate scenes.

What’s different about “We Were Soldiers” is that this might be the first Vietnam war movie that feels like a World War II movie. Unlike “Apocalypse Now” and “Full Metal Jacket,” for instance, there is no politicizing here, no angst, just soldiers standing bravely before the enemy in the face of great odds.

As one soldier dies, he notes how happy he is to die for his country. As another soldier passes, he looks to be at great peace. When the movie was released after 9-11 in 2002, this was a major shift in popular attitude. Given the current war overseas, one wonders how the material would be approached if the movie was made today.

Grade: A-

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays in Discovering, Fridays in Happening, and Weekends in Television. He may be reached at Christopher@weekin

rewind.com.