"Be Kind Rewind" might seem like a regressive step for famed French director Michel Gondry. Compared to his last two fictional films, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "The Science of Sleep," this flick starring Jack Black and Mos Def appears downright ordinary - not ordinary in the sense that it is mediocre, which it certainly is not, but ordinary in the sense that it is simple.
Where Gondry's previous works looked inside protagonists and toyed with their notions of memory and desire, "Be Kind Rewind" plays off a simple but endlessly enjoyable premise: Mike, a video store clerk played by Mos Def, has been put in charge of Mr. Fletcher's (Danny Glover) store for the weekend. While Mr. Fletcher is gone, the store clerk's friend Jerry (Jack Black) accidentally erases all the videocassettes. The video rental business cannot restock its collection; not one local store carries VHS tapes anymore. So, what are the video store clerk and his friend to do? Remake all the erased videos and hope that the customers either can't tell the difference or don't care.
What action ensues in act two is rather predictable. But, judging from the audience's reaction to last Tuesday night's press screening, no one really cared. And that's because Gondry's concept -- an unlikely video store clerk and his kooky, trailer-dwelling companion producing their very own films that people rent and watch - captures the interest of the contemporary adolescent and young adult generations. Many of these moviegoers have grown up toying with their parents' video cameras. Their moving-making adventures were made possible because video, not film, turned everyone from your mom to your grandma to your sister's guinea pig into an amateur filmmaker.
Yes, we laugh at Mos Def and Black attempting to remake such films as "Ghostbusters," "Rush Hour 2" and "RoboCop" because everything from their shot composition to their in-camera editing to their set design is terrible. But we also laugh because, at some point or another, we tried the very same thing - maybe not with "Ghostbusters," but certainly with another equally ridiculous film.
It is through this notion and these antics that "Be Kind Rewind" digs deeper than Mos Def and Black's off-the-wall comedy (though Mos Def's delivery and comic timing as well as Black's absurd riff on his "High Fidelity" character are particularly notable) and contemplates the reason why so many people are entranced by so many movies. Gondry doesn't do much thinking to find this answer. And that's because there isn't much required to find it. He needs only to watch and to create, and he understands why.
The final scenes of "Be Kind Rewind" push the video store customers toward collaborating with Mos Def and Black on a grand film of their very own. (Don't worry. I'm not ruining anything here.) When they all sit down to watch the final product, the joy is evident on the faces of the viewers (those watching "Be Kind Rewind" and those watching the film inside "Be Kind Rewind") and the filmmakers.
Gondry's triumph here is not that he tricks an audience into watching other people make and watch their own movies. There is no trickery involved on his part. People will gather to watch this film on their own, not only because it is excellent entertainment, but also because it has tapped a common interest in the human audience. Gondry's real triumph is discovering that common interest: The need to interact and participate and view their own and others' creations.
