BE KIND REWIND by Michel Gondry
Mike (Mos Def) takes care of Mr. Fletcher’s (Danny Glover) run-down VHS rental store while Fletcher pretends to be on a holiday attending a Fats Waller memorial service. Fats Waller is the famous jazz musician who was born in the very dilapidated house where Fletcher’s store Be Kind Rewind struggles to survive – at least he was born there according to Mr. Fletcher. Mike is trying hard to do everything right, but his best mate Jerry (Jack Black) gets “magnetized” in an attempt to sabotage the local power plant (because, you know, the power plant is an important part in the conspiracy to control people’s minds with microwaves) and erases all VHS tapes in the store.
To cover up the problem, Mike and Jerry have a crazy idea – they shoot their own 20 minute-versions of the movies people want to rent. In the early stages, they hope to come away unnoticed, but then word of mouth spreads and more and more customers show up to rent a so-called sweded movie. But can their moderate success save the old-fashioned VHS rental against the competing DVD-stores and the imminent demolition of the ramshackle hut it’s located in?
Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind is a celebration of the independent filmmaker, imagination and the old-fashioned way of “hand-made” films, and it’s as sentimental as this sounds. But hey, didn’t you expect a hilarious comedy? With lots of funny attempts to recreate famous scenes from lots of well-known films? Unfortunately, there are no big laughs and not enough of those “Wow, it’s hilarious how they did this scene from that movie”-moments. It’s all endearing, amusing, and the cast is charming, but it’s too much sentimentalism and may raise some chuckles but no screaming with laughter.
Just watch the sweded version of The Lord Of The Ring and some other sweded films on the Be Kind Rewind website instead.
Be Kind Rewind movie trailer
