Be Kind Rewind

Dir: Michel Gondry
101 Mins
2008












Mike works at a video store, Jerry his close friend talks him into sabotaging the local power plant as he believes it is melting his brain. Mike flees after breaking into the power plant leaving Jerry who has an accident and ends up being magnetized. When Jerry visits Mike at the video store he erases all the tapes by being near them. The two combine to start filming - 'swedeing' short versions of the deleted films for customers and perhaps make enough money save the video store from being pulled down.

Coming after the Science of Sleep and Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind expectations have been reasonably high for Be Kind Rewind. Present from Gondrys other work is the gleeful absurdism and anarchic humour but it is a shame Gondry could not have progressed from The Science of Sleep rather than regressing from it. By comparison to the aforementioned film Be Kind Rewind is rather one dimensional. Part of the problem is Jack Black, he does have funny moments and I am not a Jack Black denouncer, I thought he was extremely funny in the derided Nacho Libre but here he at times seems too loud for the rest of the film. Mos Def arguably turns in a better performance by being deadpan. Although most people acting next to Jack Black could be viewed as being deadpan by comparison. Simply put, the narrative feels very lazy, as if it were only constructed for the premise so that Jack Black and Mos Def can remake or 'swede' films. That wouldn't matter at all but why have the pretense? The story feel trite as a result and it also impinges on the possibility of seeing the enjoyable lunacy of other remakes, I was looking forward to seeing the remake of Sleepless in Seattle for example.

We never really care about the video store closing, we never really care about Mr Fletcher who owns the store and even the ending, which is clever, fails to move us and leaves us with an overtly too sweet taste in the mouth. Be Kind Rewind is sometimes entertaining and uniquely original in conception but is a misfire from the talented Gondry that manages to outstay its welcome before the end.
3 / 6