Clerks

CLERKS does a great thing: it attempts to provoke us, but we never actually sense that it is trying to be provocative. Coming out in the late 90's amid essential censorship protests demanding an NC-17 rating for language alone, Cannes lauds, and debut-film wonderment, similarly surprising is that these outside factors haven't diminished the film itself. Perhaps pretentiously, as with all of his films / work, Kevin Smith crafts in CLERKS a parallel universe of laziness. His film is, on the surface, about how the clerks who serve us really hate us, but underneath that, and past the realization / obviousness of the pathetic nature of clerks, there is a culture of laziness and self awareness.
Dante (Brian O'Halloran) is Smith's lazy hero: a convenience store clerk who is brought in on his day off. Everything goes bad for Dante: his friend from the video store next door, Randall (Jeff Anderson) annoys him all day, he misses a hockey game, he laments over his high school girlfriend, he laments over his current girlfriend, and he has to deal with idiotic customers. The whiny nature of Dante's problems is the least attractive bit of the film, but, made on a minuscule budget, the goings-on at the small convenience store is surreally funny. However unbelievable the customers are (and they aren't all weird) they possess a quality of what the quintessential asshole at the counter would be like, rather than the general one. The knack for dialogue that Smith possesses is also put to good use.
However, this is a film of immaturity. It has a lot of worth, and its very funny, and for that I give it credit. Philosophically however, as CLERKS occasionally pretends to be, the film is not sound.
Clerks: ★★★