‘Clerks III’ is a bittersweet sendoff to director/writer Kevin Smith’s beloved clerks characters. It comes full circle but at a cost. While it is a great film to wrap up the 'Clerks' series, I do not believe it makes for a good final film for Smith’s View Askew-verse despite its closure.
'Clerks III' revolves around one of the film’s protagonists, Randel Graves, suffering from a heart attack. After surviving an operation with a high mortality rate, Randel has a new lease on life. He decides to make a film, with the help of his best friend Dante Hicks, about him and his friends working at the convenience store, The Quick Stop. The parallels to Smith’s ‘Zack and Miri Make a Porno’ are apparent and there is even a running joke that nods to it.
'Clerks III’ is everything viewers have come to expect from Kevin Smith- relentless pop culture dissection, a dirty mouth, and a big heart. This film is very personal to Smith as he recently suffered from a heart attack and had a high chance of dying from heart surgery. The film places a heavy emphasis on coping with grief, mortality, and existence.
'Clerks III' contains plenty of subtle and not-so-subtle nods to prior films in the View Askew-verse while being as meta and sentimental as ever. As a major Kevin Smith fan I was an emotional wreck after screening this film. The amount of poignant drama in 'Clerks III' is surprising and longtime fans will be hit with an existential gut punch early on in the film.
The acting in ‘Clerks III’ is inconsistent and that is less charming this time around, but it usually lands when it needs to, especially in some particularly heart wrenching dramatic scenes. The comedy is almost always on point. Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith, who play the iconic duo Jay and Silent Bob, often steal the scenes that they are in.
Kevin Smith is a writer first so the screenplay is filled to the brim with clever wordplay and stylized dialogue, sometimes to a fault. ‘Clerks III’ isn’t the most refined of Smith's works and occasionally the comedy undercuts the drama. In certain films that doesn’t matter, but with the themes Smith is trying to convey and the pathos he is trying to evoke, it is important the dramatic notes hit.
“Clerks III’ is more than a sobering love letter to Smith's fans. It is a sincere- sometimes painful- love letter to all his friends who helped him along the way.
MY STAR RATING 3.5/5
Check out Kevin Smith's films as well as other irreverent comedies available at the Brown Deer Public Library.
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