Earlier this year I read, in horrified fascination and depression, Kevin Smith writing about how damaged a person Jason Mewes is, all the insane junkie damage he caused to those around him (and the reason he is still on the planet appears to be because of Smith's benevolence and endless patience, for which I must give him kudos) and how addicted to drugs and sex he was/is. So I approached 'Clerks 2' wanting to see him in it, but with more of a sick sense of morbid curiosity as to what he'd be like, with my image of him having been permanently altered for the worse by what Smith extensively wrote about him on his website. I mean, it's cool that Mewes has kicked drugs, but when you've read about him doing things like (amidst a million other scumbag junkie tricks) damaging his own teeth to get free drugs…things are never going to be the same again. And what do you get if you remove the old abrasive-and-sleazy-but-charming-and-funny shoot-from-the-hip-and-lip tell-it-like-it-is-or-isn't Mewes as a good reason to watch a Smith effort?

One of the worst films ever made.

Now. I'm not saying that with any sense of hyperbole. Trust me. Just my opinion, of course, but if you want to throw money down the toilet (glad I didn't see this in the cinema, as I sort-of thought about doing at the time it came out) I can highly recommend seeing this worthless waste of celluloid. If ever a film was made that was an insult to the audience in general, it's this one. The fact that this topnotch botchjob fuckup ever got made is incredible in itself; the Weinsteins, with Miramax, obviously only saw dollar signs when Smith approached them to do this. And he probably had the same cynical agenda too.

His last waste of time, 'Jersey Girl,' (saw it on a transatlantic flight, unfortunately, or I would not have sought it out) did very little at the box office, so it's obvious that Smith thought he could revive his flagging financial fortunes by making a sequel to the (not very good) film that put his name on the celluloid map. And while we're on the subject of 'Clerks,' a film journalist friend of mine, in the business for over 15 years, reckons that the reason 'Clerks' took off is because it was shown at festivals with boring programs in 1994 and, through dearth of anything else to write about, journos picked up on the monochrome foulmouthed anti-epic. Which I personally think sounds plausible cos, well, truth be told, 'Clerks' just really isn't all that good, apart from a pre-drug-crash Jason Mewes.

Anyway. 'Clerks 2' encompasses the 'lives' of the same two slackers Dante and Randall (can't be bothered looking up the names of the 'actors' who play them) a decade down the line from the original film. Neither of them can act yet, and their wooden, terrible performances are the anti-thespian snore-bore-core that a small ensemble of untalented actors revolves around. Only one person in this movie can act, Rosario Dawson, and she's totally out of place amidst all the other muppets bumping off the walls; the kid who worships 'Lord of The Rings' (can't be bothered looking up his name either) is particularly bad.

And having a 'Rings'-worshipping character means Smith can have endless tedious loops of dialogue waxing lyrical about how superior the 'Star Wars' films supposedly are to the 'Rings' films, ie somebody else's childhood films versus his those of his own. King Geek Smith doesn't want to grow up, has stated so in interviews, and this Peter Pan(icked-by-adulthood) trait is all too pathetically on display during the running (well, limping) time here.

The comic book geek dialogue in the films just got more and more oppressive and pervasive with each film Smith made, until, by this one, it's like being at a noxious geek convention full of unlikable people (cos there genuinely is not one single likable male character in this flickershow; they're embittered pathologically misogynistic geeks whom you/women couldn't stay far enough away from in real life)(something these kind of people may have heard about on the internet but will never truly experience)(much like sex) spouting inane bitter banter about children's films. In their 30s. It's deeply, deeply sad and depressing and demented, forever-young rejuvenile 10th ring of Dante's Inferno, and if this were my life I think I would either seek professional help or kill myself.

Or buy a 'Star Wars' action figure cos that'll make me feel much, much better, just like it did when I was eight.

Back to the plot (which is a four-letter word here). The Quick Stop, that Gen-X (what a worthless catch-all term) 'McJob' movie icon where the two main characters work, burns to the ground, and they're forced to take a job at a nearby Mooby's fast food joint. And there's (wipe a tear from my eye)(conjunctivitis ya see) pain and poignancy and pathos along the way too: Dante is moving to Florida with his fiancée (a rich-bitch type who would NEVER go for a man like him; she comes across, oddly, as being a woman in her 40s trying to play somebody in their 30s) and he's knocked up the manager (Dawson; can't remember her character's name and don't care) of the place. Oh, the dilemmas a dirt-poor loser with two beautiful women fighting over him has to go through! Gimme a fucking break.

So it's the last day of Dante's employment. With these pair of dimwit unlikable morons, their first day would be their last day on any job, because the insane amounts of forced, unnatural-sounding, expletive-laden weird sexual dialogue they spew constantly would get them fired within five minutes. But not in wistful-for-minimum-wage-employment Smith's twisted mind. These fools say and do whatever they want and get away with it. And I think the director's formula here was simple (but obviously not foolproof, judging by the 'cinematic' results): he thinks well, profane Tourette's Syndrome-on-speed dialogue got 'Clerks' attention, so I'll just throw a lot more of it into the pussy pussy pussy ass to mouth mix, constantly, suck dick in a hetero way, because as everybody fuckin' knows people who fuckin' work in fast food fuckin' restaurants (and in low-paid jobs in general) swear like fuckin' troopers, 'Star Wars' stormfuckintroopers, constantly, twatscar, and can flaunt the cuntrag rules of the company they work for, fucktard. Or at least that's how I remember it, in my forced fuckin' minimum fuckin' wage nostalgia, cockhole. Give the fuckin' public the pubic bullshit it wants; it'll be boffo fuckin' box office guaranteed! It's a winning fuckin' formula and it can't fuckin' suckin' dick lose! Fuck Yoda for Jesus! Sweet!

Wrong.

Very, VERY wrong.

And COMPLETELY deluded.

This movie is clearly a vanity project, made by a director surrounded by sycophantic company people whom he makes money for and a sea of adoring drooling net-dweller young idiots who will buy anything and everything he puts out without thinking. He's been surrounded by yes-men telling him he can't do anything wrong for too long (the fate of many artists who make it big and start to believe their own hype, unfortunately) and it shows. Painfully so. If Smith could take a step sideways and see how some people perceive his film (though it does have its fans, it must be said)…he'd be absolutely mortified beyond belief. Or at least he would be if he had any common decency or dignity or sanity. I truly cannot believe this trash got greenlighted for production, and by a major company yet; it boggles the mind. But hey, money talks, quality walks, and that's that.

The plot (which Smith lost with this effort) stinks, we've covered that. But what really leaves a bad taste in my mouth (or ear) is the sexual dialogue in 'Clerks 2.' And before we go any further, no, I am not a prude - wouldn't have watched any of Smith's other guitar-picks-of-the-future movies if I was - but this garbage was just beyond a joke. Not even offensive, cos it was trying far too hard to be; ultimately it was just boring and weird as hell. Dante and Randall constantly traded strange sex riffs, in front of customers or not, and it got very tiresome after about five minutes.

And there's a super-fucked-up scene in the 'deleted scenes' section of the DVD where Randall goes on about Dante masturbating in the Mooby's toilets, coming on the toilet seat, Dante's mother rubbing her genitals on the semen and impregnating herself, and the resulting incestuous retarded child trying to fuck his dad/brother in the mouth….that was just totally beyond sanity or belief and made you wonder what the hell was going through Smith's diseased mind when he wrote it.

Then again, I think what's going through his mind might be somewhat obvious, if the constant homoerotic tenor of the dialogue - with endless references to male-on-male oral sex, homosex (“in a completely hetero way,” as Smith keeps saying, in a get-out-of-gay-jail-free-card way), things getting shoved up guy's asses (including a pickle in one of Smith's tedious trademarked 'old sexual hi-jinx remembered' dialogue riffs) and rampant degrading mentally unbalanced misogyny (the 'Rings' kid talks about his girlfriend having a “pussy troll” - EH? - that eats penises - classic vagina dentata fear-of-vagina imagery) are anything to go by. A third of the way through watching this film, my wife Ellen, just before turning out and going back to her book ('Saint Morrissey' - ironic because of what's being discussed here), turned to me and said “this is Kevin Smith's coming-out movie.” And you know, that's genuinely what it seems like - and I'm not trying to be contentious here, just saying what I saw. And was even more (dis)interested to see on the 'deleted scenes' section a bit where Jay and Silent Bob talk to each other, with Silent Bob saying the following with genuine vitriol (Jay starts):

“Jesus fucking Christ, what good are you to him, you fuck?”

“You know what? Like…that hurt! Cos like, why me, why do I get attacked? Like what do you ever add to the fucking proceedings? You got like one answer for everything: 'pussy, man!' The sad thing is you can't even see that. You're just a gay man in deep denial.”

This movie truly does have the most homo-orientated sexual dialogue (sideswipe; how many times does Randall say “ass to mouth?” Must be a Smith fave) I have ever heard outside the Bruce LaBruce movies I have seen. Make of that what you will but, along with many other sexually confused references in Smith's work and other stuff I have seen or read, I have drawn my own conclusions. You have to wonder what his wife - whom he constantly salivates on about having sex with in public, thinks of all this sleazy shit. Suppose it keeps the money rolling in. but any self-respecting woman would be nauseated to be married to somebody whose work in his mid-30s shows the artistic maturity of a sleazy, stupid, nasty, sick 14-year-old boy.

The above dialogue quote also illustrates the weird Catholic thread in Smith's films, as he is a worshipper of this outdated institution. Dante (ie a surrogate Smith character) here wears a prominent cross round his neck, and there are constant references to Jesus. The most disturbing of these comes at a donkey show (ie rampant degrading disgusting misogyny) where a man is having sex with an, umm, ass (speaking of submerged homo references)(chuckle). The 'Rings' character is masturbating in excitement to the show and screams out “I'M SORRY JESUS!” Disturbing X-ray of the director's brain to the core. He even has Jay finding Jesus(!) and consulting the Bible for guidance, the latter being something Smith sort-of parodies…but the fact it's in there in the first place, and Jay wears a 'Got Christ?' tee-shirt in the film speaks volumes.

What other random stuff to ramble about? Oh yeah. Although I was a big Mewes fan, seeing the man doing the 'Silence of The Lambs' dance (ie tucking his dick in between his legs and dancing about naked on camera) was not particularly high on my agenda; weird fucking film-riff altogether. Good to see Randall ranting on the net at people, something Smith does when he gets angry at film fanboys who diss him on movie sites after attaching way too much importance to the ravings of faceless morons. And it's pleasing to see that he extends his sneering rich boy (not a man by any means) satisfied middle class mollycoddled blanket stupidity-cum-hatred to other religious and ethnic minorities during the running time to give everybody a chance to be poked at in poor 'comedy' by his Wildean wit.

I am sure black people (with the constant references to “porch monkeys” or “niggers” by Randall) or Jewish people will love this movie. As would people associated with mentally retarded people - for some intolerable reason morons like Smith, and young Americans in general, seem to think it's hilarious to mock these people (try working with them, as I do, and you might see that they have more brains and style and grace and dignity than you ever will, Smith) in vicious sullen fashion. Yes, it's a youth thing, but when you're in your MID FUCKING THIRTIES like the filmmaker is, it's time to give up. PERMANENTLY.

But the 'director' (in the loosest sense of the word) here can't afford to do that, can he? After all, he has an audience to pander to who pay his bills and no doubt will put his daughter Harley Quinn (named after a 'Batman' character - draw your own conclusions) through college. After the years of therapy she will need after she sees some of the worthless filth her father spat and shat out onto the audience (to use an analogy he would no doubt like; another one could be that he spent the full length of the movie here pissing contemptuously over the viewer) to keep her fed and watered. Do you honestly want your daughter to see stuff like that 'toilet jerk-off' (ob)scene, Smith? Do you even think about stuff like this? Maybe it's about time you did.

Then again, too late now…

Oh well.

Smith says this is his favourite film he's made. Whatever. Hopefully this will be the last film he ever makes; I personally can't see what he could make another one about. But not having anything particularly interesting or entertaining to say hasn't stopped him in the past so…can't wait for 'Clerks 3: Return of The Clerks!' It's very, very rarely I watch a film and think to myself just what the fuck is this shit and how did it even get made? You can judge how accurate this opinion is for yourself if you want to. Just don't say I didn't warn you. Kevin Smith, just go away. Permanently. You've had your fifteen minutes. You're rich. You got lucky. Now get while the getting is good. Bye.

Graham Rae is a Scottish scribbler from the cheery charming picture-postcard-perfect post-industrial up-and-coming internationally renowned tourist destination of Falkirk, now resident in the US. He has been writing for as long as he can remember (started at any early age, carving graffiti into womb walls) and am halfway through my first novel (well, third, but the other mishmash misfires don’t count),’ Weekend Warriors.’ He has been writing about film for various electronic and print publications for 18 years now, and you can see a sporadically entertaining eclectic selection of his ramble/rantings at www.filmthreat.com,

© 2006 Laura Hird All rights reserved.