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"A very funny look at the over-the-counter culture" - Their tagline, not mine, but an exceedingly accurate one. However before discussing the film, it might be best to put it in a bit of context, as most people seeing a black and white movie made in the 90s would assume it would be purely art-house or something to that effect.

Back in the early 90s, a young man by the name of Kevin Smith was working at the Quick Stop Convenience Store in Leonardo, New Jersey. During this period of his life he started to really embrace his love of film and enrolled in a course at the Vancouver Film School. Once he'd learned what he needed from there, he returned to his old job, and realised that no-one had ever written a "convenience store movie", and began to write the script that would become "Clerks".

Once he'd completed the script, he began the casting and pre-production, and took the financial plunge, gathering $28,000 by maxing out credit cards on top of his $5/hour day job. Black and white film was chosen due to the lesser cost of the film itself and the lighting requirements of filming in colour, matching colour temperatures and the like. Once everything was in place, shooting began in early 1993.

The result of this is a film that proves that good comedy doesn't require a huge budget and regurgitated jokes. The combination of a solid ensemble cast and a great script takes the viewer through a day in the life of convenience store worker Dante, and his best friend Randal, who works in the video store next door.

Anyone who has ever worked in retail should be able to empathise with some of the customers that they have to deal with (or not as the case is) and the way that the various plots/events of the day seamlessly weave throughout each other is so subtle that you're given the impression that the more outlandish parts of the film are a natural flow of events.

It's hard to give it true justice by just talking about it, as a lot of it's brilliance and charm lies in it's dialogue, but anyone who's ever contemplated about how the Deathstar was built so quickly in Return Of The Jedi, or what happens when guidance counsellors lose the plot, then your answers are within this film.

The only warning I'd give people is that this film contains some very coarse language, so anyone who's bothered by that sort of thing should consider themselves warned. In my opinion however, a lot of the time it's not just gratuitous, but instead used to make the dialog more naturalistic.

Overall though, I can't recommend this film highly enough, and if you spot a copy down your local DVD shop of choice, then you have my permission to make an impulse purchase...

5/5

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“If you’re gonna make fun of me, I’m gonna make fun of you, but with proper spelling and sentence structure."