“Mallrats” (1995) was ahead of its time because of writer-director Kevin Smith’s embracing of geek culture (which was, of course, his own culture). The film opens with art of the main cast made into fake superheroes. (Ben Affleck’s, interestingly, is “Buttman.”)
A stamp of the 1990s
It also has a permanent 1990s stamp with everyone’s flannel shirts and the fact that it takes place in a shopping mall — the Eden Prairie (Minn.) Center Mall, to be precise.
It’s true that recent nostalgia-fests like “Fear Street Part One: 1984” can portray things like sprawling, successful malls. But one thing that’s hard to do on purpose is to capture the charming awkwardness of material written and directed by a newcomer to major filmmaking.
To celebrate Kevin Smith’s birthday, from Aug. 1-9 we’re spotlighting some of his work that we haven’t previously reviewed at Reviews from My Couch.
“Mallrats” (1995)
Director: Kevin Smith
Writer: Kevin Smith
Stars: Jason Lee, Jeremy London, Shannen Doherty
“Mallrats” stands alongside “Empire Records” and “Can’t Hardly Wait” with this trait.
An example comes early on, when Rene (Shannen Doherty) is just sitting beside boyfriend Brodie (Jason Lee), waiting for him to grab his video-game remote so she can say her next line. And there are many instances where someone says an unnaturally long and articulate line of dialog in the heat of a moment.
But “Mallrats” is such a funny screenplay that we don’t care about Smith’s directorial or editorial clunkiness. Even when lines are forced into a character’s mouth for the sake of the following punchline (such as “There’s just some things you don’t talk about in public!”), they are funny enough that we forgive it.
Most quotable movie ever?
In fact, Lee’s over-the-top performance as someone who loves 1) comic books, and 2) Rene, is a feature rather than a bug. When I was 17, “Mallrats” was the most quotable movie ever.
IMDb has a “memorable quotes” section, and it can include every one of Brodie’s lines as far as I’m concerned, whether he’s screaming about kids on escalators or superheroes’ sex organs.
I don’t know if Lee was directed this way, if it was an acting choice, or if he was phoning it in, thinking no one would see this movie. But it’s brilliant. Brodie is objectively annoying but subjectively lovable, because we can sense our own kind.
(Watched through the lens of time, Rene and Claire Forlani’s Brandi are even more clearly out of the league of the two main mallrats, especially the unkempt, stink-palming Brodie.)
In retrospect, it seems unlikely no one would notice “Mallrats.” Because of “Clerks,” it was on the radar of 1990s teens before it even came out. Smith’s cachet was building behind the scenes, too. In “Clerks” he cast his friends, here he gets the likes of Michael Rooker – and he stink-palms him!
Lessons from a legend
The movie’s second most memorable “Lee” is Marvel Comics legend Stan. His lessons to Brodie about the value of love – spurred on by Brodie’s friend T.S. (Jeremy London) – comprise Lee’s best cameo, withstanding challenges from all those Marvel movie pop-ins.
I admit I’ve learned about the source material of all of Brodie’s comic references in the decades after “Mallrats” premiered thanks to the superhero movie boom. I got the “Star Wars” ones at the time, but now they feel extremely old hat. (Silent Bob’s arc finds him trying to use the Force.)
When the guy staring at the sailboat painting calls Rene “Brenda” (as per Doherty’s “90210” character), it’s a little silly.
At the time, though, the slathering of pop-culture references on a screenplay was new. “The Simpsons” did it, but not to this degree, and “Scream” and TV’s “Buffy” hadn’t come out yet.
Even if the idea of Silent Bob watching “Empire” and “Jedi” and being inspired to use the Force seems quaint as hell now, it doesn’t slow the film down. Nor does the stiff editing and scene-staging, nor the fact that Brodie and T.S. wander through a mall for most of the run time.
They’re always involved in something amusing. In reality, trips to the mall weren’t this adventurous, but I didn’t video-tape those trips. Instead, we have “Mallrats” for posterity, and I’m happy to remember malls this way.