Friday, June 13, 2008

Be Kind, Rewind DVD

DVD Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Jack Black and Mos Def Teamed in Dumb DVD

Mike (Mos Def) is the only employee at Be Kind, Rewind, a struggling video rental store slated to close in 60 days unless his boss, Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover), brings the place up to code. Fletcher knows if his business is to survive he needs to modernize in order to catch up with his cross-town rival.
Unfortunately, this means he must leave Mike in charge for the first time, which is problematical because Mike isn’t the brightest bulb in the batch. One day after work, Mike and his wacky pal Jerry (Jack Black) try to short circuit the power station by tossing an anchor into the works.
Of course, the prank goes horribly wrong and Mike ends up receiving a shock of several thousand volts. This incident leaves him not only dazed and confused, but magnified to the extent that his body now starts sticking to everything from metal street lamps to galvanized steel fences.
The plot thickens the next time he enters Be Kind, Rewind, when his body immediately demagnetizes and erases every videotape on the shelves. It’s not long before people start complaining that the movies they’ve rented are blank.
So, the buddies come up with another crazy idea, namely, to re-shoot each film a customer requests, armed only with a hand-held camcorder. Unfortunately, as promising as this premise might sound, Be Kind, Rewind fails to measure up to expectations. The poorly-executed recreations of familiar scenes from hit films simply fall flat.
Even the teaming of Jack Black and Mos Def fails since they’re abandoned by a rudderless, humorless script . Nothing can save this overambitious enterprise embarked upon by a couple of idiots, full of sound and fury but ultimately signifying nothing.

Fair (1 star)
Rated PG-13 for sexual references.
Running time: 102 minutes
Studio: New Line Home Entertainment
DVD Extras: A “Behind-the-Scenes” featurette.

To see a trailer of the film, visit:
http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1152975129

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