Be Kind, Rewind
The film's title takes itself from the name of a video store in New York where most of the action takes place. It's one of the last "mom and pop" stores that focuses entirely on video instead of DVD. The store is run by kind old Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover), who insists the building has history, as a famous jazz musician was born where his store is now. The other two main characters are Mike (Mos Def), who works at the store and sees Mr. Fletcher as an almost father figure, and Jerry (Jack Black), who spends half of his time hanging out in the store, and the other half of the time creating conspiracy theories about and secretly plotting to sabotage a nearby power plant. The story kicks in when Mr. Fletcher leaves on a trip to spy on some of the competing rental stores, leaving Mike in charge. Shortly after this happens, Jerry's planned sabotage of the power plant goes wrong, and he winds up getting electrocuted. This doesn't kill him, rather it causes him to become magnetized. Therefore, the next time Jerry enters the store, the magnetic waves coming from his body wind up erasing all the tapes available for rent. Mike is now in a tight spot, as he has to think of a solution before Mr. Fletcher comes back, and what's worse, one of the store's few regulars, a somewhat loopy woman named Miss Falewicz (Mia Farrow) wants to rent Ghostbusters. The solution? Mike and Jerry film an extremely low budget remake of the movie in question, starring them and some of the other locals, hoping that Miss Falewicz won't notice, as she's never seen the movie before. The plan surprisingly works, and before long, customers are lining up for more of Mike and Jerry's on-the-cheap remakes of popular films.
The message in Be Kind, Rewind seems to be one of a community coming together. As word of the homemade remakes get around, more people get involved, and eventually the entire town starts popping up in their movies that covers remakes from the classics like 2001, Carrie, and The Lion King, to more contemporary films like Rush Hour 2. This is what gives the movie a lot of its sweet charms. The screenplay by Gondry wisely does not make the community into a bunch of colorful locals. (Although there are certainly some oddballs here and there.) They're mostly the kind of people you'd probably expect to find in the kind of neighborhood the movie is set in. The movie is sympathetic without ever becoming manipulative or heavy-handed, and it even gives the film a certain strange Frank Capra feel of the little people coming together to preserve what they believe in. That being said, the movie is definitely not conventional by any stretch of the imagination. Aside from its bizarre and implausible premise, the movie has an equally bizarre and quirky sense of humor to itself. Some may find this irritating, and indeed, the film does come dangerously close to drawing too much attention to itself by being weird just for the sake of being weird. For me, the movie managed to avoid becoming obnoxious, because despite it all, it knows where its heart is, and I found much of the humor to be genuinely entertaining and very funny.
A lot of this has to do with the cast, who seem to be completely game. Jack Black and Mos Def make a good odd couple, with Black playing the more comical of the two, and Def playing the long-suffering straight man to his friend's schemes. I have heard other critics saying that Black's performance is annoying in this film, but I personally didn't find him so. He finds the right balance between playing an off the wall character who builds his life around movies and crackpot conspiracy theories, but doesn't go so over the top that I didn't find myself laughing at him. He doesn't seem to be trying too hard, and I actually ended up liking his personality and his continuously positive spin on the situations he finds himself in. Mos Def doesn't get as many laughs as Black, but he seems to know he's not supposed to. He does a good job of balancing out his co-star's energetic performance, with a more subdued one that not only acts as a good counter-balance, but also makes his character extremely likeable and easy to get behind. I also liked Melonie Diaz, who plays a woman named Alma that joins up with the two lead characters movie idea early on, and winds up encouraging them the entire way through. The entire cast has a charm that carries through to the audience, and helps ground the movie a little, no matter how silly it may get.
If there's any visible fault that can be found, its that the film's premise is paper thin. Aside from some scenes dealing with Mr. Fletcher trying to prevent his building from being condemned and torn down, and a later scene when the government gets involved with Mike and Jerry's unauthorized remakes, there's no real sense of plot or conflict. The movie often comes across as a loosely connected series of skits that just barely manage to tell a coherent story. It's to the film's advantage that it contains such a strong, likable spirit, and the humor is often quite funny. Otherwise, I think this movie would barely have been able to get off the ground. I was also somewhat disappointed that the movie doesn't do enough with its own premise. Aside from the Ghostbusters remake (which easily holds the biggest laughs of 2008 so far), we get to see very little of the other ones, as most of the other films are covered in montages or brief glimpses. The end credits inform us we can see more of their movies on the film's official website, and I highly advise you do so after seeing this movie. A slightly less viable complaint is that the movie misses a golden opportunity when Sigourney Weaver pops up in a cameo as one of the government workers who tries to put a stop to their remakes. The fact that she starred in the Ghostbusters movies, and this film doesn't even have a little bit of fun with that seemed like a bit of wasted potential to me. It is funny, though, that she appears in two different movies this weekend, and both times, she barely registers.
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