Sunday, June 28, 2009

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
2001 View Askew Productions & Dimension Films.
Starring: Jason Mewes, Kevin Smith, and the usual gang of idiots.
Director: Kevin Smith
Available from Amazon.

You could call this the ultimate self-referential movie, as Kevin Smith brings the entire View Askewniverse together in one movie.

After being banned from the Quick Stop by Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson) after he catches them roughing up two kids while boasting about the greatness of Morris Day and The Time (who also make an appearance as themselves), Jay and Silent Bob (Mewes and Smith) hang out at the Secret Stash comic shop, where they find out that there's going to be a Bluntman and Chronic movie based on the comic book with the characters based on them. They're even more mortified to discover that there's an almost universally negative reaction to the movie thus far, so they set off for Hollywood to prevent the film from being made, or at the least, get the money that they rightfully are owed. At first, they can't make any progress, even when a hitchhiker (George Carlin) advises them about a technique called "road head" (look it up elsewhere, this is a family movie review blog).

Somewhere between New Jersey and Hollywood, Jay and Bob end up joining up with an animal liberation group led by Justice (Shannon Elizabeth), consisting of three other ladies and one man (Seann William Scott) who Jay personally ejects from the group's van just to get closer to Justice. Actually, the group's real intention is to rob a diamond depository next to an animal testing lab in Colorado, and with the other guy gone, they pick Jay and Bob as their new patsies. As usual, the planned heist goes awry, the girls are mistakenly believed killed during a freak explosion, and our heroes rescue an orangutan named Suzanne, who they take with them to Hollywood.

In due time, Jay and Silent Bob (and Suzanne) arrive in Hollywood, with Justice and her girls following them. Can everything get straightened out without too much hilarity?

Highly recommended.

The final movie in View Askew continuity is Clerks II. Go read that review now.

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