Raunchy Buddy Comedy On Streaming Is The Most ’90s Thing You’ve Ever Seen
When the ’90s come to mind, it’s easy to think of Chuck Taylor high-tops, angry guys in flannel, alternative rock, and jamming that weird cassette tape auxiliary adapter thing into your car’s tape deck so you can watch your Discman fly into your dashboard and break in half when you stop short at a red light. If the latter experience resonates with you, it probably happened to you on numerous occasions while driving to the mall (remember malls?). In this context, Kevin Smith’s Mallrats is probably the most 90’s thing you’ve ever seen because it’s literally a Generation X time capsule of a comedy that you either need to study for historical context, or rewatch because you’re stuck in a perpetual state of arrested development.
We Used To Loiter At Malls
When I tell you that Mallrats has not aged well, I don’t mean that as an insult, but rather to point out that this movie could only exist in the ’90s. Set primarily in a shopping mall, we’re introduced to T.S. (Jeremy London) and Brody (Jason Lee), who have both been dumped by their respective girlfriends, Brandi (Claire Forlani) and Rene (Shannen Doherty).
The Breakup And The Game Show
Mallrats boasts a simple premise that’s elevated to absurd levels through its characters and their actions, and I’ll run through it as quick as possible for the sake of brevity.
T.S. and Brody show up at the mall after getting dumped, and Brandi is filling in for her father’s game show Truth or Date. The reason Brandi has to fill in, and the reason she dumped T.S., is that the original contestant died while attempting to swim 700 laps at the Y.M.C.A. to get in shape for the show after T.S. made comments about her weight. The reason Rene dumped Brody is because he doesn’t pay attention to her, but Brody can’t fully confirm this because he admits that he wasn’t really listening to her breakup speech.
Thinking that “the smell of commerce in the morning” will cure them of their romantic woes in Mallrats, T.S. and Brody are surprised to find out that the Truth or Date episode is being filmed at the same mall.
Jay And Silent Bob’s Finest Hour
The rest of Mallrats plays out as a comedy of errors as T.S. and Brody recruit the help of stoned slackers Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith) to sabotage the Truth or Date stage.
Jay and Silent Bob are up for the challenge, but are afraid of the mall security guard, LaFours (Michael Rooker), because they have reason to believe that he’s done hard time in the past and even has confirmed kills from his time on the inside. Creating a number of Wile E. Coyote type contraptions, and dressing up like Batman to evade LaFours, the dimwitted duo fails to make good on their elaborate schemes, but you can’t help but root for them as they repeatedly hurt themselves for the sake of shopping-center anarchy.
Meanwhile, and throughout the entire duration of Mallrats, T.S. and Brody’s friend, William (Ethan Suplee), stands in front of a Magic Eye poster trying to find the hidden image of a sailboat.
The Unblinking Magic Eye
Though Mallrats is only Kevin Smith’s second feature-length film (and his first with substantial studio backing), his innate talent for weaving several seemingly unrelated stories together to reach a single cohesive conclusion becomes apparent. Though Mallrats is a shining example of a film that’s a “product of its time,” it still has staying power because of Smith’s willingness to shove so much low-brow humor into a storyboard that’s surprisingly complex for what on the surface seems to be another ill-fated Gen-X buddy comedy like Bio-Dome.
Mallrats’ premise may be stuck in the ’90s, but its humor has stood the sense of time because the mall is simply its setting, while the characters, as well as their dialogue takes center stage to remind us all that a schooner is, in fact, the same thing as a sailboat.
A Blast From The Past
GFR SCORE
If you’ve never seen Mallrats, or you’re simply overdue for a rewatch, you can stream the title on Apple TV+, or snag an on-demand copy through Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, or Fandango At Home. Just make sure you bust out your old Weezer and Sponge cassettes because you’re going to have a hard time leaving the ’90s after watching this one.
