Be Kind, Rewind
New Line Cinema, 94mins, PG-13



Written and Directed
by Michel Gondry



Michel Gondry has blown it. Granted, he's been pretty uneven, some of his film have been brilliant and others not, but all of them have been quirky, and sometimes quirky just doesn't cut it.

“Be Kind, Rewind” is the last VHS video shop in Passaic, NJ, and it might just be in the very building where Fats Waller was born. It's run by a Mr. Fletcher(Danny Glover) and his simple-minded assistant Mike(Mos Def) and they seem to be doing rather well, despite the fact that wacky neighbor Jerry(Jack Black) likes to come over and harass the customers over the quality of the films being rented. This is either Disney kiddie stuff of bad sitcom, I think it's the latter.  Mr. Fletcher knows that Jerry is destructive, but he is unable to get the message across until it's too late and he's manage to rope Mike into one of his common harebrained schemes, which gets Jerry electrocuted and turns him into a superhero.

But he doesn't actually know that his superpowers are good for anything despite erasing videotapes, which of course he does immediately, and now that poor Mike has let himself to be put in a horrible, unbelievable pickle, he's in even more trouble when silly
Miss Falewicz(Mia Farrow) comes along to rent “Driving Miss Daisy”. So the two decide to make a new version, her being a moron who doesn't know jack. So they now invent “sweding”, the art of faking movies, and with the aid of pals Alma(Melonie Diaz) and  Wilson(Irv Gooch) they make a success of it.

It's not as horrible as it sounds, but everyone should be ashamed of themselves for being in this turkey. It's lame, the writing is mediocre, and it's to frigging juvenile for it's own good.  Pass this by. 


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