Clerks was supposedly one of the bigger films to come out of the 90’s, especially among the younger crowd. Growing up, it kind of passed me by though, but I finally got to see it recently, and I can see exactly why it was so popular; it plays into a lot of the sentiments shared by the grunge/alternative crowd, a scene that was big during that decade among the youth. It also buys into a certain market cachet, as the film functions as a kind of homage to those workers of the lowest common denominator: customer service.

Dante has been working at the same job since graduating high school, manning the desk at a Quick Stop convenience store in New Jersey. It’s a day in the life for our unaspiring hero, starting when he gets called in on his day off to cover for a sick employee. Things only go downhill from there, as he arrives to find that the shutters have jammed, has to deal with his girlfriend Veronica’s trying to motivate him into going to college, and the endless parade of dull witted customers that make life difficult for a man just trying to do his job. Fortunately (or unfortunately), Dante’s slacker friend Randall Graves, who works at the video rental store next door drops by frequently to cheer him up and piss off his customers. Madcap adventures ensue when the duo learns that the boss won’t be by to back Dante up as intended, and the guys arrange a hockey game at the store, go to an ex-girlfriend’s wake, and get visited by Dante’s collegiate ex-high school sweetheart, whom he still pines for. Interspersed throughout are lewd jokes and plenty of hilarious situations.

The movie was amusing, don’t get me wrong, but I feel it may be a little overrated as a “must see” film. The film was made on a shoestring budget, filmed at a Quick Stop where the director was actually working at the time. The actors are all mostly friends and relatives of the director, but they still do a good job portraying their roles, and the dialogue is excellently written. There are no special effects in the film (it isn’t even in color), and everything is done ‘off the cuff’. Still, the lack of budget doesn’t get in the way of the film’s humor and the two protagonists frequently find themselves in a host of bizarre comical situations. The humor tends to be mostly dialogue based and tends to be very low brow. In fact, Clerks was one of the first films to get an NC-17 rating based on the script alone, as the film contains no real violence or overt sexuality outside of spoken implications (Lawyers were brought in before the film’s release to get the rating changed to R).

The film has its charms but I think a large part of its appeal was drawn from the current attitudes people had at the time of its release, and the film’s foul mouthed clerks and curiously wise drug dealers bought right into that. The success of this film enabled the director to go on to make more films, most of which are set in the same world as Clerks, and many of which share the same characters or references to the same characters, without being direct sequels (although one direct sequel was released recently, Clerks 2). The DVD contains the basic trappings, including alternate endings and deleted scenes and commentary.  The 10th anniversary edition supposedly contains even more added material. There is also a music video by Soul Asylum included as a special feature. Overall, I'd say this is a decent film if you're looking for some juvenile 90's comedy.

Hard Stats:

Producer: View Askew Productions (distributed by Miramax)
Director: Kevin Smith
Screenwriter: Kevin Smith

Cast:

Brian O'Halloran - Dante Hicks
Jeff Anderson - Randall Graves
Marilyn Ghigliotti - Veronica Loughran
Lisa Spoonhauer - Caitlin Bree
Jason Mewes - Jay
Kevin Smith - Silent Bob

Trivia:

Clerks was filmed at an actual QuickStop location in New Jersey. The owners also owned the video store next to it, which was also used in the film. Keven Smith worked at the QuickStop during filming, and was only allowed to film after hours, so a plot device was contrived to explain the reasoning for the shutters being closed during "daytime" scenes. Kevin would clock in at 6 a.m. and work until 11 p.m., and then commence filming until 4 in the morning. During the film's 21 day shoot, Kevin only got an hour or two of sleep each night.

Clerks was made on a budget of only $27,000 which Kevin raised by selling his comic book collection, borrowing $3,000 from his parents, and maxing out his credit cards. Some of the money was also obtained through a car insurance settlement.

The film originally obtained a rating of NC-17 based solely on its graphic dialog. Miramax hired a member of the O.J. Simpson defense team to petitioned the MPAA to lower the rating to R without any cuts. They were successful.

The cost of obtaining the rights to the soundtrack, which included several prominent grunge rock bands of the day, outweighed the entire production costs for the film; a first in film history.