All that there is to expect from “The 4:30 Movie,” which tells an enjoyable coming of age story in addition to being a rom-com, is that the director and writer Kevin Smith makes an expensive movie and nothing else. Recent works of Smith are more tailored to his fans so it is almost expected that the movie’s fans teases about “Clerks IV”. This film is from the other end of the stick, fans of Smith looking for more of his kind of us are the target audience. In this instance, it is a chronicle of an adolescent teen who is thirty percent made out to be cute, plus there’s an archetypical teenager who pursues his love interest while making oblivious out with his two buddies.
While self-deprecating humor in “The 4’30 Movie” should have been the mood of the whole series so as to engage heterosexual male audiences in some way, “Clerk 3,” rather even difficult, was sentimental “We are better than this movie.” Readers can expect to join Bryan David (Austin Zager) and his fellow nerds for classic movies at Oldcastle now that it’s 1986. He wants to take “Melody” with me to see “Buck lick,” an R rated adaptation of a plane detective drama. After three consecutive films, the audience’s attention is easily strung throughout.
Although distant in first impressions, Brian David wants to take “Melody” on a date, causing inner conflict between himself, loud character Burney (Nicholas Cirillo), and nerdy character Belly (Reed Northrup). There is a pattern of screwing around: touching each other, kissing, and, to a certain extent, screwing, while hopelessly interpreting their entire career around homo films.
For Smith, it is about storytelling; he deals with people who are underachieving but manage to do something because they have the power to believe in themselves and each other. The layout is a casual one, and for Smith it is a layup.
The beauty of ‘The 4:30 Movie’ is that it remains very close to the ground and stays quite small in its scope. As in most of Smith’s films as of late, this one too appears to have been shot with a motley crew of his favorite people including his daughter Harley Quinn Smith and a bunch of well known faces from his usual cast which includes the likes of Rosario Dawson and Justin Long. The core group of teenage characters, who make up the main cast, have nice albeit somewhat forced chemistry and together, they make good enough compensation for a lot of rather bad gags which might still work for fans of Smith’s creativity.
All this and perhaps even the destiny of the Atlantic Cinemas may perplex Brian David and his pals who are young enough to think that they have the world all sassed out. For Smith, not much has altered, as his comedies usually offer detached film fans some light as to how small the recent yesteryears now appear vis a vis the present. We know of the performance of the Mets in their 1986 season, just as we know about Brian David’s great taste in music as he dances and sings along to Chaka Khan with his friends, or even why he appears transfixed by the (disingenuous) ids that come before the initial feature of the film particularly the ads that come along with the likes of Sister Sugar Walls, whose central character is a killer nun, who also does sex work on the side, played by Harley Quinn Smith. Scenes such as that are no longer made but it is all too obvious that they indeed do make these kinds of scenes.
There’s usually no ambiguity as to how the plot of Brian David will progress. It is also true that some of their earlier courtship dynamics could have been more pleasant than how Zager and Gudang share together. Likewise, Ken Jeorg’s movie theater manager Mike who is neurotic but always up to no good comes off better in his portrayal in the book than he should. It probably says something that the funniest people in “The 4:30 Movie” are older male dropouts who to put it mildly don’t quite care what Brian is doing. They discuss “Rocky IV” and embark in pro wrestling only to slip into inaudible twaddle about Smith’s fairy tale fantasies.
Of course women figure in the most embarrassing interactions in Smith’s latest flick, those characters who can only be appealing in as much as there are gifted and experienced female comediennes working on the project. Smith attracts a couple here, but they can only do so much with such rubbery material. Also, the author’s attempts at humor also get fairly drowned by the embarrassingly earnest as well as simply implausible moments featuring Brian David’s stand in, and some intimidatingly bright and charming females, particularly John Boorman obsessed usherette Genesis Rodriguez and, with her sister, Melody.
It is a bit too much to try and accept yet another Kevin Smith’s picture this time a comedy which allows the arrogant under-achiever to gain some momentary growth in the narrative for an appeasing apology depicting Brian David as a socially incompetent womanizer “The only place where you can look short is where you do not have any idea about women”. No matter what happens now though, you will eventually forgive or curse ‘The 4:30 Movie’ depending on how badly you want to stand behind the young actors. Their sincere tries to pretend that some used clothes Smith leaves behind can still sell many phrases as “Do you think today could ever be a movie?” This is not so much the case with the majority of people however, as they should know ‘The 4:30 Movie’ is not new as there were many films before this that were based on older times.
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