Hollywood films have
become monoliths. They arrive market-tested and as carefully packaged as a new
deodorant, made with bankable stars, safe directors, and scripts that had their
edges shaved off long before the cameras started rolling. They're products
padded for maximum safety and spoken of in careful talking points before being
released to theaters. And then they take on lives of their own. What a film
does—or fails to do—to a viewer is much more personal.
The question of who
controls popular culture is at the heart of Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind, and it's hard to imagine
anyone else handling it with such a sure, light touch. It's as thoughtful as
any movie involving Jack Black's magnetic urine dares to be. Showing as deep a
concern with the happenings of a single neighborhood as Gondry's exuberant concert
film Dave Chappelle's Block Party, Be Kind Rewind rarely strays from a
corner in Passaic, New Jersey, home to the Be Kind Rewind video store owned by
Danny Glover. VHS tapes line sparsely populated shelves, while other parts of
the store do duty as a thrift store and a museum to legendary jazz pianist Fats
Waller, who was born in the building that's now home to the store. (Or maybe
not.)
When the forces of
gentrification target Glover's crumbling store, he knows Be Kind Rewind's days
are up. Even worse: While Glover is away studying his options, Black
accidentally erases the store's entire collection, much to the horror of its
manager, Glover's in-all-but-name son Mos Def. But soon Def and Black hit on a
novel idea for keeping the business afloat: They decide to re-film the store's
collection themselves.
Their new
career—which begins with a remake of Ghostbusters and expands to include
everything from 2001 to The Lion King—gives Gondry a chance to indulge some
extremely funny examples of the handcrafted fantasies that have characterized
his work from his music videos through last year's The Science Of Sleep. Ninety minutes of Black
and Def stepping into Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker's Rush Hour 2 roles would almost be
movie enough, but Gondry has more in mind. As the enforcers of copyright and
enthusiasts of urban renewal descend on the shop, Be Kind Rewind becomes a kind
of Alamo against the forces of homogenization. To whom do the places and things
that shape our hearts really belong?
Gondry isn't an especially
skilled storyteller. The film has energy but no real pace. The characters don't
grow so much as hang around, and his script frays into a bunch of loose
strands. But the visual wit, game performances (including a glowing turn by
Melonie Diaz as a neighbor roped into small-scale movie stardom), and
overflowing humanity have more than made up for the shortcomings by the time
the film finds a final moment that's simultaneously abrupt and magical. And
clearly not designed by committee.