Movie Review - 'Be Kind Rewind'

Be Kind Rewind

Starring Mos Def, Jack Black and Danny Glover
Directed by Michel Gondry
Rated PG-13

There's an inherent problem with thinking outside the box: Most people like being in the box just fine.

Filmmaker Michel Gondry will never make movies that conform to the principles that people who love being inside the box admire in a film. Instead, he makes assured, bizarre, brilliant and beautiful works that defy easy categorization. Still, it's hard to argue to emotional wallop of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a strange but ultimately innately human drama about relationships written by Charlie Kaufman, with whom Gondry can share credit for the achievement. 

Less universal but still holding onto some real human qualities is Be Kind Rewind, which propels itself from the daffiest plot device of the year and sticks the landing as a story of friendship, community, and the love of stories.

Be Kind Rewind is one of the last VHS-only video stores around. Hidden in a crumbling building on a street corner in Passaic, New Jersey, Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) resists the change to DVDs by offering one movie, one day, one dollar. The store manager, Mike (Mos Def) is friends with the very odd Jerry (Jack Black), who lives in a trailer some seven feet from from the local power plant.

One day, after a failed attempt to sabotage the power plant sent jolts of electricity through his portly body, Jerry walks in the video store and magnetizes all the tapes on the shelves, leaving them blank.

The only solution, it occurs to Mike and Jerry, is to shoot new versions of Ghostbusters, Rush Hour 2, and Driving Miss Daisy themselves. The 20-minute videos, which have no real editing, props, actors, effects, or scripts, become big local hits. Jerry refers to the new movies as "Sweded," which he believes makes them sound like imports...from Sweden.

Soon, everyone in Passaic wants Be Kind Rewind to Swede their favorite movie, everything from 2001 to The Lion King, which in the new version features the line, "I will piss on the graves of your ancestors!"

The sight gags are hilarious throughout, the clever way Gondry recreates these big budget films for free is inspired and inspiring and as annoying as Jack Black would be on his own in this film, he's subdued by the performance of Mos Def, who doesn't ever say much but is always an extremely effective force on screen.

The fun gives way to sentimentality, but not the syrupy kind we'd expect from a movie that fits squarely into the box Michel Gondry will always fight to avoid. But the sentiment is there, the humor is there and the imagination is undeniably there.