Clerks II

Clerks II. 2006 View Askew Productions & The Weinstein Company.
Starring: Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Rosario Dawson, Trevor Fehrman, Jason Mewes, Kevin Smith, Jennifer Schwalbach Smith
Director: Kevin Smith
Buy Clerks II at Amazon.

The sequel to Clerks opens red hot, as Dante Hicks (O'Halloran) comes to the Quick Stop one morning to find it ablaze. It seems that Randal Graves (Anderson) accidentally left the coffee pot warmer on overnight, burning down the store that he and Dante had worked at for over a decade.

One year later, it's Dante's last day of work at a fast food joint called Mooby's, where he works with Randal, and a socially inept Lord of the Rings and Transformers fanboy called Elias (Fehrman). He's planning to leave for Florida to marry the one who wears the pants in their relationship, Emma (Schwalbach Smith). Her father's giving them their very own house, and a car wash to run. Dante really isn't that crazy about Emma, as we find out.

Jay and Silent Bob (Mewes & Smith) still hang out wherever Dante and Randal work, now drug free thanks to being on probation and random drug testing, but they still sell marijuana and act up the only way they know how.

Dante is also close with his boss Becky (Dawson), whom he had a one-night stand with on a preparation table one night after the restaurant closed. She also reveals that she's carrying Dante's baby, which puts him in a hell of a spot. Dante realizes he's in love with Becky, but still agonizes about doing the right thing by leaving New Jersey and marrying Emma.

Randal, when he isn't teasing Elias on the job, finds himself not only not wanting to lose Dante, but after a run in with a millionaire ex-classmate (Jason Lee), starts to realize that he's not as happy with his position in life as he thought he was. He also arranges a going-away party for Dante, complete with a live "interspecies erotica" show, which indirectly gets he, Dante, Elias, Jay and Bob thrown into jail for the night. At the party, Emma walks in to find Dante and Becky kissing, calls off the engagement, and still has time to blow off Jay's advances. After Dante renounces their friendship, Randal confesses his fear of losing his best friend and proposes they buy the Quick Stop and reopen it themselves. Financed by Jay and Silent Bob, they do so.

Highly recommended.