“Be Kind Rewind” isn’t about sex or lies. It’s just about videotape … and our love affair with movies.
Set around what must be the last VCR rental place left in America, a rundown Passaic, N.J., ghetto joint on the verge of closing, this affectionately warped comedy-drama fits perfectly into the oeuvre of its mad genius, writer-director Michel Gondry.
Less fortunately, it also stars Jack Black.
First, the good news: Gondry is known for two enlightening, original cinematic collages. And “Be Kind Rewind” resembles both “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “The Science of Sleep” in many ways, including the hapless but lovable fools it has as its characters. All three of Gondry’s flights of phantasmagorical imagination dwell in neighborhoods of gritty realism where magically sophisticated visuals somehow emerge from a decidedly low-tech sense of design whimsy.
In today’s less-focused and less emotionally potent example, Gondry still comes up with a killer premise: What if all the now-obsolete tapes in the store get accidentally erased and the naive jester pair of Jerry (Black) and Mike (Mos Def) come up with the most harebrained — and yet weirdly inspired — plan ever to replace them and save old Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) from losing his business?
With charmingly deluded seriousness of purpose, the doofuses decide to record on tape their own condensed amateur homages/satires/reproductions of the favorite films that were destroyed.
Using Dumpster finds and everyday objects to fashion sets and faux special effects, the pair makes crazy new creations that star only themselves and nearby dry cleaning worker Alma (Melonie Diaz) in all the key roles at first. But then they incorporate their whole motley community of eccentric cinephiles (including Mia Farrow), who start to make the little productions into local “box office” sensations.
The budding filmmakers call their remake process “swede-ing,” a jibe at pretentious European art films. Their unintentionally hilarious and keenly reductive interpretations of everything from “Ghostbusters” and “Boogie Nights” to “Robocop” and “Driving Miss Daisy” comment on each one’s famous quirks as well as our knowing affection for a shared popular culture.
The mini-movies inside this movie are sheer brilliance. Sadly, Black regurgitates his usual, now-tired, goofball shtick in a style of forced comedy this piece didn’t need. The subplot about the store closing also seems strained, but a framework was needed as an excuse for the cool main conceit.
In this age of YouTube, “Be Kind Rewind” conveys the message that the movies belong to us. It’s also an ode to an art form and the dead media format that brought it to life to so many of us for so many years.
‘Be Kind Rewind’
***
» Starring: Jack Black, Mos Def, Danny Glover, Mia Farrow
» Director: Michel Gondry
» Rated PG-13 for some sexual references
» Running time: 101 minutes
