Be Kind Rewind

A pair of would-be Spielbergs (Mos Def and Jack Black) are forced to make their own versions of hit films when the entire stock of their video store is destroyed by a tinfoil-hat experiment. Their creations are pretty funny, but the rest of this film from director Michel Gondry ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind") is a love affair with itself that's far too easy to forget.

By Alex Markerson Feb 25, 2008 7:20 PMTags
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Review in a Hurry:  A pair of would-be Spielbergs (Mos Def and Jack Black) are forced to make their own versions of hit films when the entire stock of their video store is destroyed by a tinfoil-hat experiment. Their creations are pretty funny, but the rest of this film from director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) is a love affair with itself that's far too easy to forget.

The Bigger Picture:  This paean to dead formats (if you aren't Blockbuster, it's hard to remember the heyday of VHS all that fondly) and DIY ingenuity mixes Gondry's skewed vision with a story that's as old as the hills: Let's put on a show! Mike (Mos Def) and Jerry (Jack Black) need to save their neighborhood-landmark store...Only their core business—renting videotapes—is hard to sustain when all their tapes are blank.

No problem, says Mike. We'll just make new ones, starring the two of us and whoever happens to wander into frame. And this does turn out to be the easy part; finding the comedy is simple when you've got a straight-man with Def's nervous energy and a wild card with Black's dogged commitment to obtuseness. The interplay between the leads here is worthy of the franchises they're knocking off in cracked-fun-house-mirror fashion.

Not so, the wavering story of Be Kind Rewind. The guerrilla films themselves are beautiful (if demented) lies, held together by gumption and junkyard props. But the ugly truth is there isn't much to inspire in the rest of this surprisingly saccharine tale, as it makes a hash of the conflict between nostalgia and renewal while congratulating itself for seemingly reconciling them. It's too much meta, not enough meat. Too much VHS, not enough Beta.

The 180—a Second Opinion:  It's sweet and well-intentioned and certainly not without its charms. If you loved the trailer, you'll probably be disappointed, but not heartbroken.