To my annoyance, Clerks III actually hit local movie theaters but in the most limited way possible. It didn’t open at my nearby AMC and the only AMC with the flick is a good twenty-five mile drive (the horror, the horror). The theaters that did get it only have one 7pm screening all week. Maybe this is a limitation of the distribution… but all I know for sure is that my local theater is STILL playing Where the Crawdads Sing and Top Gun: Maverick (both of which are available on streaming). But I girded my loins for a $14 tickets (the barbarians!) and headed out to a theater five whole miles from my house (a theater in Chapter 11, I should add).

Clerks III starts with a heart attack that feels like Kevin Smith repeating his stories of his own heart attack that you’ve heard a half dozen times if you listen to any of his podcasts. But that near-death experience kickstarts Randal and Dante, still working at their convenience store, to write and produce a film about their lives. Which means a massive heaping dose of Clerks nostalgia, references, cameos, and in-jokes.

For around the first half of the film, it is perhaps the most self-indulgent and borderline masterbatory film I’ve ever seen. But it was decent… a good solid 3 stars that kept making me ask who this was for. I mean, Clerks tossed a wide net and captured aimless 20somethings, Clerks II was that generation trying to figure out where to go next… but Clerks III seems aimed at filmmakers who survived heart attacks who want to revisit the glory of their youths. That’s a pretty narrow slice of the Clerks Venn diagram.

But then it turns around and somehow – through sheer gorilla strength and guerilla tactics – gives us one of the most meaningful and thoughtful films of Kevin Smith’s wandering career.

The emotional punches are strong. At first, I figured he was just going to repeat the tough love messages from Clerks 1 and 2. But, no… he actually found new emotional truths to delve for these two best friends. Kevin Smith turned this picture around… even with the (he said charitably) limited acting range of the two leads.

I kind of love this film. It’s uneven and spends too much time naval-gazing, but when Kevin Smith turns it on, he turns it on. This was clearly a passion project for him, the real catharsis and follow-up to his near-death experience, but it manages to exceed that narrow focus and become a more universal picture in its themes.

Score: 88