Clerks

An overturned coffin with an ex-girlfriend or a story about a broken neck during oral sex in a car is truly funny when presented by Smith, but especially in the first half, the dialogues of the characters suffer from self-interest syndrome without a drop of wit or any shift in the plot. It would have been better to push the envelope more using dry humor (which Smith later proved he could do brilliantly), or to let the life wisdom surface at a lower cadence and in a more natural way, rather than bolting it on to episodic scenes with store visitors. It’s definitely entertaining, but Smith proved his virtuosity later. (12/11/2006)

For the umpteenth time, I've never understood why audiences love a movie that can't be funny and so has to resort to reaching for the bottom. But here I don't get it at all! They put a couple of greasy-haired ponytails behind the counter. They tell them to spout one old bullshit after another and talk dirty. When they had nowhere left to go, they started getting lame (really lame) about sex... and for what? Kevin Smith may be all things... just not a god. (28/03/2011)

It's hard for me to find the words, so I'll write it simply: this film is just terrible bollocks, maybe very cleverly made and with nice performances, but still blatant bollocks about nothing, where almost nothing happens and it ends up kind of.... nowhere. I don't deny that it's quite original in its essence, sometimes even funny and the viewer never gets bored (hence the 3*), but I have a bit of a different idea of what a quality and for some even cult comedy should be. Anyway, for a few of his later films, Smith still has my favour :-) 60% (24/08/2013)

I thought that the memory of this movie was too blurred and it wasn't that good. But it's probably mainly because of Smith's more recent movies, which are not worth it. Here, Kevin simply showed that the dialogues are his, they are still entertaining, and moreover, he created iconic characters, not only in the personas of Jay and Silent Bob. A legendary movie for me. (12/03/2015)

An incredibly inexpensive film, when Kevin Smith used his experience from working in a shop and wrote a script based on crude humor and bizarre characters of urban slackers, street dealers, and misfits of all kinds. The plot is not important, what matters are the dialogues filled with slang, vulgarisms, and an incredible cadence of various phrases and mostly well-functioning jokes. Thanks to this film, Smith became a recognized icon of the American independent scene and could afford to launch the production of provoking, disrespectful, and in many ways provocative films in a grand style. Clerks is certainly not a perfect film, the technical quality is poor, but it has so much energy, courage, and non-conformity in it that I forgive it for many more things. Overall impression 95%. (15/06/2006)