Be Kind Rewind (2008) Review

This movie relies on one thing. That every character in it is stupid enough to go along with its premise. Be Kind Rewind tells the unlikely story of a small video store on the verge of collapse, literally. There's only a couple of customers who are willing to get their videos (yes, videos because they have no DVD) from it. The store, named Be Kind Rewind, is run by a single clerk named Mike (Mos Def) and crashed by his idiot paranoid friend Jerry (Jack Black). Jerry is so convinced that the government is controlling his mind by way of the power plant he lives next to, that he attempts to sabotage it. He is of course electrocuted. Instead of dying he is magnetized and inadvertently erases all the videos in the store. Don't ask me if that is really possible. I've never met a magnetic person to ask them. Anyway Mike and Jerry decide to reshoot the entire catalog themselves with an old camera and a budget of about zero dollars. They begin to make more money with their "Sweded" versions of the films (including Ghostbusters, Driving Miss Daisy, Men In Black, The Lion King, Rush Hour 2) then they ever did renting the real ones. "Sweded" means they are more expensive because they have to be imported from Sweden. Sweden actually has a very lax stance on file-sharing and so there is a LOT of piracy in Sweden.

No way could any of this happen in real life but guess what? I don't care because it's all whimsical and whimsy is what writer-director Michael Gondry excels at. Jack Black has rarely even made me smile but his role is the best in the film. One particular moment where he makes up the lyrics to Ghostbusters had me laughing quite a lot. Mos Def on the other hand was a mental strain. He mumbles through the whole film and only emotion is whining. As a cinephile I truly enjoyed the idea behind the film and found myself asking myself how I would remake a smaller version of my favorite movies.

Whether their plan works or not I won't tell you nor will I inform you if Hollywood believes Mike and Jerry's work to fall under piracy or parody but I will say that this was an enjoyable film. I suppose that the people in the area are paying for a twenty minute version of a movie starring their neighbors but I myself don't know my neighbors enough to want to pay a dollar a minute for something that is far below the quality of the original. Maybe I should go knock on their door? Nah.

★★★