Be Kind Rewind Review

Reviews

Jun 30th 2008 By Total Film

Here’s a meta-movie valentine to good old VHS, only on DVD and Blu-ray. Science Of Sleep director Michel Gondry’s warm and wonky comedy of collaboration, creativity and can-do community spirit honours video via an old-school neighbourhood-set save-the-store story. Just as talking pictures trounced silents, so DVDs endanger Danny Glover’s down-at-heel video emporium… until the erasure of his stock (long story) prompts Mos Def’s store clerk and Jack Black’s store schlub to remake, or “swede”, lo-fi recreations and cause a stir. Flimsy whimsy aside, the results give good gag count, from RoboCop going over schedule to pizza placement in Boyz N The Hood. Unfortunately, the “sweded” movies don’t feature on the DVD, but extras do include a decent Making Of, the movie’s Fats Waller doc (long…) and a sweet paean to Passaic, NJ – “the neighbourhood that hasn’t been touched” – that recalls Gondry’s earlier Dave Chappelle’s Block Party.