Mallrats

Plot synopsis:
The story takes place in suburban New Jersey. TS Quint arrives at his girlfriend Brandi Svenning's, house to pick her up for a road trip to Florida. She meets him in the driveway and tells him she won't be able to go; she's been asked by her father to fill in for a woman who was supposed to appear on her father's TV show (an poor imitation of The Dating Game). Quint's offhand remark to the original contestant the night before resulted in her obsessively swimming laps at the local YWCA pool until she died from a brain embolism.Quint believes that Brandi is simply bending to the will of her overbearing father, who dislikes Quint to begin with. Quint had also been planning to propose to Brandi at Universal Studios in the Jaws spectacular. The couple have a serious argument that ends with Quint leaving.Meanwhile, in the basement of his own home, Quint's best friend, Brodie, is woken by his girlfriend, Rene. Brodie is largely indifferent to her presence & the two have a heated conversation where she finally dumps him for many reasons, mostly his lazy & shiftless attitude & his ignorance about how much she cares about him. Brodie has never introduced Rene to his mother and she resents having to climb in his basement window to spend the night with him. She throws him a break-up letter and climbs out the window over his protests.Quint goes to Brodie's house after leaving Brandi & the two try to figure out what to do with the rest of the day. Brodie tells Quint about his being dumped and the two discuss their relative situations. They finally decide to go to the local mall & hang out.They arrive at the mall & find out that a stage setup is being constructed. It turns out that Brandi's father is going to be staging his dating show in the mall for the public to see the taping and because a couple of television executives will be present & he hopes he can further his own career. Brodie suggests that he & Quint find a way to sabotage the show out of revenge. They find the mall's resident troublemakers, Jay and Silent Bob, in front of the pet store and enlist their help to wreck the stage setup and the show. However, the two already know they must find a way to either distract or take down the mall's top security guard, a hulking man named La Fours.Jay and Silent Bob's plans are all blundered attempts that end in failure. They are constantly pursued by La Fours and the other mall cops and manage to escape much of the time. Though they draw up intricate blueprinted plans for their missions, they are thwarted every time.Meanwhile, Brodie and Quint try to reconcile with their respective former girlfriends. Brodie notices that Rene is being schmoozed by the general manager of a mall men's store, Shannon, whose ultimate plan is simply to get Rene into bed. Brodie manages to get Rene alone in the elevator and following a heated argument, they have sex. Rene is still not impressed enough to take Brodie back. When Shannon hears about the tryst, he takes Brodie into a back corridor of the mall and beats him up, saying that Rene's not interested and that he's only using her for sex.Quint is also unsuccessful at reconciling with Brandi, who shows up at the mall to dress for the dating show. Quint has a few conversations with Mr Svenning to try and convince him that he's a decent enough person to be dating Brodie, but Svenning is totally unconvinced. When Brodie joins the conversation, he plays a nasty trick on Svenning: he "stinkpalms" him, shaking his hand and handing him chocolate-covered pretzels after he'd inserted a few of his fingers in his own rectum. Svenning, however, had simply been stalling the duo and has them both arrested (they are rescued moments later by Jay and Silent Bob, who knock out their mall cop captors).Brodie suggests that to avoid further pursuit, that they go to a nearby flea market. While there, they seek the advice of a psychic, Ivannah, whose gimmick is to read people's fortunes topless. (She also has 2 nipples on her right breast, adding to her panache.) She gives Quint some advice; that he shouldn't give up trying to reconcile with Brandi, despite what her father thinks. The two return to the mall and reconnect with Jay and Silent Bob to enact a more elaborate plan of revenge.One of the mall's denizens is a 15-year-old student named Tricia. Tricia is conducting a study of the male sex drive and her research involves having sex with men aged 18 - 60. She has also videotaped them all with their consent. One of the people she'd slept with is Shannon. Brodie asks to borrow the tape she'd done with Shannon.Behind the scenes of the dating show, Jay has been sent to subdue two of the male contestants with marijuana. Brodie and Quint take their places on the show. A third contestant was missed by Jay. They also knock out Svenning's personal assistant. Svenning himself is sidelined by a case of diphtheria, which he'd caught from Brodie's stinkpalm prank, and spends most of the show vomiting.On the program, Quint, Brodie & the third contestant, Gill Hicks, will compete for a date with Brandi. Brandi asks them several pointed questions about their dating style and soon figures out that Quint and Brodie are behind the wall that hides them from her. Quint is able to win Brandi back with clever answers and the two reconcile on stage. Brodie takes the microphone from the host & points out Rene in the audience, telling her that Shannon is a lecherous bastard. While he's seized by the security guards, Silent Bob, who'd wired a VCR unit into the stage's monitor, plays Tricia's tape of Shannon having sex with her. Brodie announces that Tricia is an underaged girl and Shannon is arrested. Svenning is also arrested for the video being shown on local television, and for the scatological remarks the Brodie made as a contestant. Rene admits she loves Brodie and gets back together with him. He invites her to dinner at his house so she can meet his mother.The TV execs tell Svenning that they're not impressed with his show, calling it derivative and dull. They offer Brodie the chance to host his own talk show, which he enthusiastically accepts. The final montage shows Brodie on his own show; Brandi and Quint get married at the Jaws spectacular in Florida; Tricia's book is a bestseller for over a year; Svenning and his assistant are shown doing television in prison; Jay and Silent Bob set out West with an orangutan (a lead-in for their adventures in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back).

Tags: comedy, cult, absurd, humor, satire, romantic, comic, revenge, prank

Review:
From watching his films, he seems to like his characters to exist in his strange world where things are exaggerated and ridiculous characters do unrealistic things.That sums up Mallrats - it's the story of two friends who both lose their girlfriends and then spend the rest of the day hanging around in the local mall.
Whereas his later Chasing Amy brings adult subjects into the comedy - this is pure cartoon comedy, although understand it's not dumb like slapstick - but crazy, clever humour with plenty of jokes occuring all around the main action.OK the overall plot is weak at best, but the story is more about the characters and the situations along the journey to the end of the film and here is where Smith wins.
Jeremy London is a weak straight man and doesn't really convince.Jay & Silent Bob are good as always - although for most of the movie they exist in their own little subplot of taking on the mall police.
The long diatribes about seemingly nothing, the anti-establishment rumblings of Brody (who ironically spends a lot of the film clarifying escalator ettiquite and other mall law), and a bigger involvement of Jay and Bob (but not too much) make this as good, if not better than the other Kevin Smith films and quite possibly my favourite of his.Its hard to rate this film, you'll either really like it and give it a 10 or tuck into another chocolate pretzel after giving it a 1..
This movie is really extremely funny.That is, if you are into either Comics, Science Fiction or Shopping Malls.The basic idea is simple: Two dumped guys try to win their girl-friends back, and their brilliant strategy is to hang around in the local shopping mall.What makes the movie work is the wonderful mix of slap stick humor, intelligent puns and gross sexual innuendos.
this is an incredible movie and if your a clerks fan (which I'm assuming is the only Kevin smith film you've seen because its blasphemous to watch them out of order) then this is even better.
The second movie in Kevin Smith's 5 film View Askewniverse series is Mallrats - a charming comedy about two losers, who, after being dumped by their girlfriends decide to spend a day at the mall.
It's been said - not just by critics and fans, but by Kevin Smith himself, that Mallrats is a bad movie - and by far the worst of his 5.
Jay & Silent Bob appear to add the cartoon comedy flavour, while Stan Lee cameos in an hilarious performance of himself.I liked the script and the way that the movie was paced, although at times seemed like the scenes were stretched further than they should be.
'Mallrats' but is the kind of film you either like or don't like which is pretty much the case with any Kevin Smith movie.
Jay is a stoner who acts like he's got to go to the bathroom really bad;  Bob is just a fat idiot who spends the whole movie pointing his hand at things and trying to use "the force" to move objects.
This is Shannen Doherty's best role (mainly because she's hardly ever on screen;), Jason Lee's best role, and Jeremy London's best role (not to be confused with twin brother Jason who was the awesome Randall Pink Floyd in Dazed and Confused...though Ben Affleck and Joey Lauren Adams were both in Dazed as well...)Look for an amusing role played by Ethan Suplee (Seth in American History X)Overall: this film just plain rocks!
Also, a lot happened throughout the film even though it only takes place within a day and within the same mall, rather than Clerks which was slow moving and downright boring in some parts.I enjoyed the acting in this movie.
Jay and Silent Bob have a lot more to do in this film than in Clerks, and they make some of the funniest scenes in the movie.Overall, Kevin Smith had his practice with Clerks, so he had the resources to make a better film, and he certainly did.
I am sure that Smith thought the jokes were witty as hell on paper, but they lost something in the transition to the spoken word.I loved Clerks and Chasing Amy, but this movie sucked!.
After they are dumped by their girlfriends, best friends Jason Lee (as Brodie Bruce) and Jeremy London (as T.S. Quint) decide to go to the local mall.
"Mallrats" like Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith (as Jay and Silent Bob) appear.
Introduced in front of a store selling gerbils, Smith shows some quirky, anal humor.** Mallrats (10/25/95) Kevin Smith ~ Jason Lee, Jeremy London, Shannen Doherty, Ben Affleck.
After seeing the truly excellent 'Clerks', director Kevin smith's first feature, I had high expectations of 'Mallrats' and have to say that I was dissapointed.True its not the worst film ever but its not a tuch on 'Clerks'.
'Mallrats' script isnt bad but its not as clever or as well realised as clerks.Jay and Silent Bob: IMHO, these two characters cant carry a film on their own (JASBSB is a prime example of this).
That's what Kevin Smith said the studio wanted from him when they gave him the green light on the DVD: "They wanted us to make a smart 'Porky's'." In fact, there was so much riding on this follow up to "Clerks" that there was talk of a sequel, "Mallrats 2: Die Hard In A Mall".
Film eventually found its audience on video, and provided Ben Affleck with an early film credit before he hit it big and started a good working relationship with Kevin Smith that has lasted to this day.Jason Lee also became a Smith regular after this film and made appearances in "Chasing Amy", "Dogma" and "Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back".
I'll admit that the humour put through via dialogue is smooth and close to seamless as well as the fact it contains entertaining one liners and interesting repetitions of a certain jokes; something we saw in 'Clerks.' (1994) that was used to good effect, albeit a little too often.Although the basics seem to be present and are exploited well, the real bulk of Mallrats: its plot, characters and acting all fail to live up to the hype.
Perhaps more similar to Clerks.Although some of the acting by Jay and Silent Bob is rather funny and the script is witty in general, especially the opening monologue which was a great way to announce the film, Mallrats is let down by its inability to keep a good, consistent, realistic joke going in the long run.
The chaos that ensues at the mall falls nothing short of being good ole screwball fun.That's part of the reason why Kevin Smith succeeds with Mallrats so well, he's not making this for critics, he makes his movies for his friends and the fans.
Let's play Kevin Smith movie Bingo:Comic-book references.Fluid jokes and potty talk.Dirty stuff discussed at length but never shown.Gross outs.More swearing.Samey-sounding indie rock.Star Wars and superhero references.Jay & Silent Bob.And Bingo was his name-O!All of this is built around a featherweight plot designed to get characters from cunnilingus-related story A to prison-sex joke B.In the case of Mallrats T.S. and Brody are buddies and both are unceremoniously dumped on the same morning, T.S. by the vacuous and Avatar-looking Claire Forlani, Brody by Shannon Doherty in her biggest role since 90210 what range!
The boys decide "screw it, let's go to the mall".Brody is a frequent visitor and knows the mall back to front, it is fair to say that he is quite passionate about the mall and the value that it has for society, in fact between Brody and T.S. they seem to know almost everyone in the damn place.And so on and so forth: The characters talk like no-one actually talks, only in a Smith way not a Tarantino way, there is generally pointless human interaction between the leads and the usual Kevin Smith regulars (Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams, etc), and the entire plot revolves around the boys trying to sabotage a game show run by T.S.'s ex's Father.The ending is farcical, it seems like much more time was spent shoehorning in pop culture references and dirty jokes than the actual story, much like Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, which at least had better jokes and knew it was dumb.I would be willing to forgive this if the thing was just funnier.
But the fact is that it isn't, the reason Mallrats was caned by the critics isn't because of the potty talk and innuendo (even if it was), it was because in between all that there is a distinct lack of actual jokes.I know Kevin Smith has done some good stuff in between this and the execrable Cop Out. I remain a big fan of Clerks, thought Dogma was both funny and creative and even liked Clerks 2 much more than I expected, but like the girl with the little curl "when he is good he is very, very good, but when he is lazy he is just boring".Final Rating – 5 / 10.
Michael Rooker as the angry father, Ethan Suplee as a guy staring at a picture, Stan Lee as himself, Dante Hicks himself Brian O'Halloran as "Gil Hicks", Jay and Silent Bob, combine all these people and your movie just can't possibly suck.
Mallrats is a good Kevin Smith film, which means it is an acquired taste and not everyone will enjoy it.
Because while it never quite comes together as a cohesive whole, "Mallrats" is still nonetheless a charming and frequently entertaining little film.Set one day before Smith's breakout hit "Clerks," "Mallrats" follows the duo of T.S. Quint (Jeremy London) and his slacker best-friend Brodie Bruce (Jason Lee), as they spend the day at the local mall to get over their respective breakups with girlfriends Brandi (Claire Forlani) and Rene.
(Shannen Doherty) When T.S. learns that Brandi is going to take part in a live-broadcast for a new dating game-show at the mall to appease her overbearing father (Michael Rooker), the two friends set out to sabotage it and try to win back their girls at any cost- including enlisting the wild stoner duo of Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (director Smith)...
It's not as funny and well written but surely has its moments.Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes again play Jay and Silent Bob, who first appeared in "Clerks." In the centre of the story, however, we find characters TS Quint and Brodie, played by Jeremy London and Jason Lee, respectively.
Brodie recruits Jay and Silent Bob to disrupt the show.When compared to his first film, this Kevin Smith movie is sillier and poorer.
First of all I'm not going to say this movie kicks ass.because for the best part it doesn't.yet the movie in my view is not too stupid or dumb.If you had seen the Kevin Smith's cult movie Clerks(1994) and if you expect a similar kind of end product then get ready to get heart broken.Its better to keep your thoughts away from it and see it as a no need brains and simply watch sort of movie.I liked the Jason Lee character in this movie although he appears to be a i don't care kind of guy.Don't expect high drama or tom hanks kind of acting in this movie.All the fun is in the way you see the movie.Watch it cool and in the end you might find it entertaining.There are some good laughs here and there.This movie is sort of a warm up for Kevin's next venture "Chasing Amy"..
There are moments in "Mallrats", mostly during scenes where the main characters are just walking through the mall and just talking, where Smith's humor really works and achieves the same sort of authenticity "Clerks" and "Chasing Amy" do with their dialogue.
I thought the extended version, which is about half an hour longer, would be a bit better but it does nothing to improve the film and is in fact nearly unwatchable and far worse than the theatrical version."Mallrats", beyond just not being funny at all, is incredibly heavy-handed when it goes for drama, and considering that he followed this up with "Chasing Amy", one of my favorite screenplays and a great movie all around, it's especially surprising how ludicrous and just BAD "Mallrats" is.
The film has built a cult audience, but faces derision even from Smith's fans, and far from being underrated or misunderstood, "Mallrats" is just a bad, unfunny movie.
I think Mallrats works as a simple 80's style comedy, yet trying to maintain elements that made Clerks such a great film.The main characters T.S.
As usual, Smith has his regular cast mates like Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams, Silent Bob and Jay. In this film, we see Earl's Jason Lee and his on screen brother Randy played by Ethan Suplee who has a role in the film as Willam trying to see the sailboat in a picture.
Mallrats, Kevin Smith's second and most maligned film until Jersey Girl, isn't really that much of a stretch from Clerks.
With the valuable lesson that the little nuances found by hanging out at a shopping mall are the best parts of life, Mallrats is a piece of entertainment that's humor is crude yet insightful.Jeremy London and Jason Lee as two guys who have just ended relationships, but have markedly different attitudes about it and they have a really great odd couple chemistry as a result.
He cheers himself and his friend up by taking a trip to the mall, and indulging in the cookie stand, the comic book shop, and conspiring with two shady characters (Jay and Silent Bob) to screw over his unpleasant neighbor, who also happens to be a major reason that his friend got dumped.Whether the film portrays Brodie's lifestyle is healthy or not is debatable, he lives with his mother and lacks ambition.
However, I think Lee's character is the one we admire more of the two, because he is much happier and less worrisome over the course of the film as his counterpart T.S. and still gets the girl at the end.The movie takes place over a short period of real time, pretty much, a single afternoon at the mall.
Along with the two protagonists, a series of pleasantly quirky recurring characters are all found hanging out, including Joey Lauren Adams (as T.S.'s promiscuous ex-girlfriend) and Ben Affleck (as a perverted department store owner) in different roles than they'll have in Smith's future project Chasing Amy.With great dialogue as a tool, these mundane interactions between these seemingly ordinary people come to life and as a result, it becomes so engaging to watch their paths intertwine all the way to the climactic live dating show scene at the film's finale..
But not the most famous one THE CLERK, that's why I haven't seen CLERK 2 up to the present, and I think I'll watch them together one day.As for this movie, still quite Kevin Smith, we can find the famous Jay and Silent Bob here, also the regular cast including Jason Lee, Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams etc.
The plot line is kinda funny, most of the scenes happened in a local mall, two guys are going to win their girlfriends back, not like teen movie s these days, this one contains numerous japes which are neither dirty nor tacky, the measure between between humor and smarty is hard to handle, this film manages it very well.
Although in my opinion, Michael Rooker gives a rather gross performance (it's horrible to see his fat ass on screen!).As a Chinese, Kevin Smith seems too local for me, so I don't think I'm his loyal fan, but he's intelligent and has some good quality to make more WIDER films, and I do like silent bob, he's the funniest part in this film..
I will move to Mallrats.The film follows a variety of then unknown actors: Ben Affleck, Jason Lee, Jeremy London, Joey Lauren Adams just to name a few.
I'm a teenager and I'm sorry, I can't find many arguments on how the is a good movie but I can tell you this, this film inspires people, it inspires me, it inspires by friends and many others mainly because of its use of diauloge and referencing of the things that I love which makes me more and more interested in watching the film from every word ever said in the film.As for the Dawn Of The Dead thing, it comes from a discussion I had with a fellow living-dead chum I have, saying that Kevin Smith is just like Romero!
my least favorite Kevin Smith movie - still a GREAT film.
It looks great, and I love the character sub-plots at the mall, Like Jay and Silent Bob trying to knock down a stage, or Willam staring at the trick picture but never seeing the sailboat.
I think the reason the critics didn't like the movie is because they think Kevin Smith got such an easy start so it was time to bash him.
If you haven't seen any of Kevin Smith's movies, this or Clerks is a good place to start.
Jay (Jason Mewes)and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith) are two of the funniest comic teams that I have seen in a long time.
If anyone wants to see a good Kevin Smith movie, rent Clerks, Chasing Amy or Dogma (even Jersey Girl is probably better).
Mallrats is by far the best of the whole series of Kevin Smith movies.
This is without A doubt the best Kevin Smith film yet.Considering that it started with An assassination plot,I believe it turned out wonderful.Jason Lee is spot on perfect in this.There is not anyone else alive that could play Brodie better.The acting is great for A mid ninties comedy.Smith has not made A movie as funny since.No sophmore slump here.If you watch the flick again and not expecting Clerks you may just enjoy it..