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Among the early-bird customers is a stranger (Scott Schiaffo), buying coffee. Curiously, when a fellow commuter arrives to stock up on cigarettes, this man hefts a smoker's lung right out of his bag. Before Dante's horrified gaze he declaims on the horror's of the habit, suggesting a healthy alternative -- to masticate on Chewlie's gum. In barely minutes the trouble-maker has a nascent mob behind him, swaying to his inflammatory rhetoric (much of which is aimed at the "death-dealer" Dante). Fortunately, before the situation really gets out of hand, Dante's self-possessed girlfriend Veronica (Marilyn Ghigliotti) appears. Scattering the easily-led fools before her wrath, she has a little spare time to spend with Dante before leaving for class. Unfortunately, after some commiseration their thoughts turn to previous sexual partners, becoming acrimonious.
Left alone, there's little for Dante to do bar wait for Randall (Jeff Anderson) and the opening up of the video store next-door. Eventually his long-time friend arrives, late and without a care in the world. It doesn't matter to him what the customers think; for Randall they're merely an inconvenience to slacking the hours away. Soon their conversation swings into the familiar arc of pop culture, sex, annoyances and idle speculation. All is calm though, even as Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith) push drugs outside. However, Randall spots an announcement in the local paper -- Dante's ex-girlfriend Caitlin (Lisa Spoonauer) is engaged to be married, just when he thought they were getting back together. No wonder he freaks out!
A rude, crude and very, very funny comedy of circumstances, Clerks sees Smith making a virtue of his career misfortune. Drawing on the well of personal experience, Smith has an eye for weird situations that serves him well where others see only the mundane. Clerks is thus composed of everything interesting that's ever happened to Smith compressed into a single shift. For those stuck in a rut, with a dead-end job, his strung together interludes have a definite resonance. What sets Clerks apart from all those other films where the director effectively turns the camera upon themselves is this -- the script. Based upon the recurring theme of being trapped (in the store, job and relationship), Smith evades the need for a strong storyline. Instead sketches rely on his understanding of the human condition, natural profanity and coincidence. In essence, the minimum-wage existence is depicted perfectly (almost uncomfortably so).
An inevitable result of Smith's financial constraints is that barely any of the cast members have significant acting experience. While it's true that the characters in Clerks traverse only a limited emotional range, this is still something of a drawback. Equally, however, no one is excruciatingly bad, just somewhat wooden. O'Halloran acquits himself as the indecisive but resistant to change Dante, though he's too good natured to be as caustically funny as Randall. Anderson hits his character dead-on, capturing both Randall's abusive nature and his perfect comprehension of Dante's position. Interestingly Smith has created strong female roles, with both Ghigliotti and Spoonauer being totally clued-up as to what they want from life. Less juvenile and more assured than the men, the pair perform adequately.
Ultimately Clerks achieves its objective of being both hugely entertaining and an advert for Smith's talents. Less obvious than the tight, consistent screenplay is the fact that this movie embodies the art of inventive film-making. Consider this -- taking essentially a single, unchanging location, Smith finds numerous ways in which to use this space. By positioning his cast all around the store, in a variety of poses and with lots of close-up shots, he stops the film becoming visually stale. In addition, the idea of having the blinds shut cleverly solves the problem of only being able to shoot at night; it's meant to be dark! Certainly Clerks has weak moments, mostly where Smith fails to think of a suitable home for the gags he doesn't want to discard, but it never lulls fatally. It's simply a charming, grimy movie and is probably best approached in just that frame of mind.
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