Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
Convenience and video store clerks Dante and Randal are sharp-witted, potty-mouthed and bored out of their minds. So in between needling customers, the counter jockeys play hockey on the roof, visit a funeral home and deal with their love lives.
Clerks is a landmark of 90s indie cinema, shot on $27,000 in glorious black-and-white with a raw, unpolished aesthetic that became its own signature. Its novelty is exceptional — Kevin Smith's debut captured a generation of slackers with its rapid-fire, philosophically-tinged dialogue about pop culture, sex, and existential aimlessness in a New Jersey convenience store. The acting is amateurish in places, with the non-professional cast delivering uneven performances, though Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson have a natural chemistry that carries the film. The plot is deliberately episodic and meandering — a day-in-the-life structure — which works thematically but limits dramatic momentum. Cinematography is functional at best; the flat, grainy black-and-white was born of necessity more than vision, though it lends authenticity. The ending is appropriately bleak and honest, avoiding a feel-good resolution that would have undercut the film's cynical worldview.