Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back

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Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Kevin Smith
Produced by Scott Mosier
Written by Kevin Smith
Starring Jason Mewes
Kevin Smith
Jason Lee
Ben Affleck
Shannon Elizabeth
Eliza Dushku
Will Ferrell
Ali Larter
Chris Rock
Jennifer Schwalbach Smith
Brian O'Halloran
Jeff Anderson
Music by James L. Venable
Cinematography Jamie Anderson
Editing by Scott Mosier
Kevin Smith
Studio Dimension Films
Miramax Films
View Askew Productions
Distributed by Buena Vista Pictures
Release dates
  • August 24, 2001 (2001-08-24)
Running time 104 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $22 million
Box office $33,788,161[1]

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is a 2001 American comedy film directed, written by, and starring Kevin Smith as Silent Bob, the fifth to be set in his View Askewniverse, a growing collection of characters and settings that developed out of his cult favorite Clerks. It focuses on the two titular characters, played respectively by Jason Mewes and Smith.

The film features a large number of cameo appearances by famous actors, actresses and directors.

The title and logo for Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back are direct references to the second-released Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back.

Smith originally intended for it to be the last film set in his View Askewniverse, or to feature Jay and Silent Bob. Five years later, Smith reconsidered and decided to continue the series with Clerks II, resurrecting Jay and Silent Bob in supporting roles. Smith has also decided to make another sequel to Clerks, and as of 2013 is in development.

Plot

After getting a restraining order from Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson) for selling drugs (including to minors) and constant harassment, Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith) find out from Brodie (Jason Lee) that Bluntman and Chronic, the comic book based on their likenesses, has been adapted into a film in production by Miramax Films. In response, the two visit Holden McNeil (Ben Affleck), who was one of the writers of Bluntman and Chronic, and demand that he give them the royalties of the film. However, Holden tells Jay and Silent Bob that he sold his part of the creative and publishing rights of the comic over to his former friend Banky Edwards (also played by Jason Lee). Upon learning of the movie, as well as the negative reaction the movie has received so far on the Internet,[2] the two set out on a quest to Hollywood, to prevent the movie from being made and tainting their image, or at the very least receive the money from the royalties owed to them.

On the way, they befriend an animal liberation group, consisting of four women: Justice (Shannon Elizabeth), Sissy (Eliza Dushku), Missy (Jennifer Schwalbach), and Chrissy (Ali Larter); and one man, Brent (Seann William Scott), who they had picked up for the cause. It is revealed that the organization is a front; Brent is a patsy, intended as a diversion by freeing an animal from a testing laboratory while the girls rob a diamond depository nearby. Jay tricks Brent and throws him out of the van in order to get closer to Justice, the most compassionate of the women and the one with whom he finds himself smitten. Justice, who quickly becomes close to Jay and Silent Bob (particularly the former), reluctantly accepts the two as the new patsies.

While the girls are robbing the diamond depository they accidentally set off the alarm, prompting them to break the glass and steal the diamonds. While this is going on Jay and Silent Bob free the animals and take an orangutan named Suzanne with them. They escape outside to see the police arriving and the van exploding, which they believe has killed the girls, including Justice, to the dismay of Jay.

Jay then takes the orangutan with him as a memorial to Justice. Quickly afterwards, Federal Wildlife Marshal Willenholly (Will Ferrell) shows up at the scene. Blinded to the diamond heist, he claims to have jurisdiction because of the large number of animals that escaped. He learns that all the animals have been recovered except for the orangutan. The officers then find and watch footage of a video Sissy recorded of Jay making remarks of "the clit" and that he's "the Clit commander." Jay, however, was unaware that CLIT is an acronym for Coalition for the Liberation of Itinerant Tree-Dwellers, the name of the organization that Justice is a part of. Willenholly blindly finds this as an act of terrorism and calls for police support to hunt down what he considered "the two most dangerous men on the planet."

When the officers later have the trio cornered inside a diner and threaten to open fire, Jay and Silent Bob dress the orangutan as a child and walk out, claiming that they want to get their "son" out of the danger zone. Marshal Willenholly, thinking about the political repercussions of an alternate-lifestyle family, decides to let them leave, but he quickly realizes his mistake and resumes the chase. When they jump into a sewer system, only Willenholly himself follows them while the other police officers, led by the Sheriff (Judd Nelson), leave him, and he is soon tricked into jumping off of a dam.

Having escaped the law, Jay and Silent Bob once again return to their quest to reach Hollywood only to have Suzanne taken by a Hollywood animal acting agency car. Now on a quest to get their ape back and to clear their names, the two once again embark to Hollywood.

On their arrival in Hollywood, the two find themselves in the background of an E! News newscast (ironically about their threat against Miramax on the Internet) that Justice is watching. While Justice takes the diamonds and goes to Hollywood to set things right, Marshal Willenholly learns of their mission to reach Hollywood and leaves to find them.

After a long chase with studio security and reclaiming Suzanne from a fictional Scream 4 in production, Jay and Silent Bob end up in Jason Biggs and James Van Der Beek's dressing room, where they quickly realize that these are the actors that will play the roles of Bluntman and Chronic, next to Jay and Silent Bob. Suzanne beats both of them up effortlessly and Jay and Silent Bob assume the roles of their characters, Bluntman and Chronic. Being forced into their costumes and thrown on stage with a racist director (Chris Rock), they must engage in a duel with Mark Hamill playing a comic-book super-villain called Cock-Knocker, eventually taking a break from the scene when Willenholly interrupts to capture Jay and Silent Bob. Justice arrives on the scene, much to the surprise of Jay and Silent Bob. Justice tells them that the CLIT organization was not real and that the two were used as a distraction for the robbing of the jewels. Justice also admits that she, along with Missy, Sissy and Chrissy, were in fact jewel thieves. As Justice's former jewel thief team arrives, a climactic final battle ensues, after which Jay and Silent Bob get their royalties to the film from Banky, and Justice turns herself and her former team in to Willenholly in exchange for a shorter sentence and letting Jay and Silent Bob go.

The film ends with Jay and Silent Bob spending their royalty money on airplane tickets to find everybody who expressed negative opinions on the internet about the movie and characters, ranging from kids to clergy, and traveling to their towns to beat them up. The scene then cuts to everyone leaving a movie theater, having just watched the Bluntman and Chronic movie and expressing negative reception: Hooper X calls the movie a "one 90-minute-long gay joke." Jay and Silent Bob, with most of the cast, then go across the street to enjoy a performance from Morris Day and The Time.

After the credits, God (Alanis Morissette) closes the View Askewniverse book.

Cast

Box office

The film opened at #3 at the U.S. box office, earning $11,018,543 USD in its first opening weekend. The film made $30,085,147 in the domestic market, and an additional $3,703,014 overseas, for a total gross of $33,788,161 in theaters.

Soundtrack

Music from the Dimension Motion Picture Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
Soundtrack album to the film Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back by Various artists
Released August 14, 2001
Recorded Various
Genre Various
Length 56:41
Label Universal

Music from the Dimension Motion Picture: Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, the soundtrack to the film, was released on August 14, 2001 by Universal Records. Varèse Sarabande released the original score by James L. Venable. It alternates film dialogue with songs of various genres that appear in the film. It features the 2001 Afroman hit, "Because I Got High", whose music video featured the characters Jay and Silent Bob.

Track listing

  1. Interlude: Cue Music – Jason Lee as Brodie Bruce – 0:03
  2. "Jay's Rap 2001" – Jason Mewes as Jay – 0:32
  3. "Kick Some Ass" – Stroke 9 – 4:05
  4. Holden on Affleck – Ben Affleck as Holden McNeil – 0:28
  5. "Tube of Wonderful" – Dave Pirner – 1:45
  6. Cyber Savvy – Ben Affleck & Jason Mewes as Holden & Jay – 0:07
  7. "Choked Up" – Minibar – 2:58
  8. Doobie Snacks – Jason Mewes as Jay – 0:08
  9. "Magic Carpet Ride" – Steppenwolf – 2:43
  10. Jay & Justice – Shannon Elizabeth & Jason Mewes as Justice & Jay – 0:11
  11. "Bad Medicine" – Bon Jovi – 3:55
  12. Stealing Monkeys – – 0:08
  13. "This Is Love" – PJ Harvey – 3:45
  14. Advice From Above – – 0:23
  15. "The Devil's Song" – Marcy Playground – 2:52
  16. Idiots vs. The Internet – – 0:06
  17. "Tougher Than Leather" – Run-D.M.C. – 4:23
  18. Willenholly's Woe – Will Ferrell as Willenholly – 0:09
  19. "Bullets" – Bob Schneider – 4:22
  20. Touching A Brothers Heart – Jason Mewes & Tracy Morgan as Jay & drug dealer – 0:23
  21. "Hiphopper" – Thomas Rusiak featuring Teddybears STHLM – 4:46
  22. Two Thumbs Up – Chris Rock as Chaka Luther King – 0:07
  23. "Jackass" – Bloodhound Gang – 2:26
  24. A Smooth Pimp and A Man Servant – Jason Mewes as Jay – 0:16
  25. "Jungle Love" – Morris Day and The Time – 3:03
  26. NWP – Chris Rock as Chaka Luther King – 0:14
  27. "Because I Got High" – Afroman – 3:18

Reception

The film received mixed reviews, with 53% positive reviews on film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.[3]

MPAA rating and GLAAD controversy

In August 2001, three weeks before the theatrical release, the film came under fire from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), for its "overwhelmingly homophobic tone",[4] which included an abundance of gay jokes and characters excessively using the term "gay" to mean something derogatory. The scenes deemed particularly offensive included the Jay character's vehement refusal of giving oral sex to a male driver when hitchhiking, and Jay chastising Silent Bob for being willing to perform fellatio on him to get the security guard (Diedrich Bader) to let them go. Following an advance screening of the film, former GLAAD media director Scott Seomin asked writer-director Smith to make a $10,000 donation to the Matthew Shepard Foundation, as well as to include a reference to GLAAD's cause in the ending credits.[5][6]

On the bonus disc of the two-disc DVD, Kevin Smith explains in the on-camera intros of the deleted scenes that several scenes had to be cut from the theatrical release, due to the film initially receiving an MPAA rating of NC-17. He also mentions in the audio commentary of the feature film that it took three submissions to the MPAA for the film to earn an R rating.

See also

Notes

^ According to Ethan Alter of Film Journal International, Smith did not intend to make another View Askewniverse film upon completion of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, but only decided to do so several years later, following the unsuccessful release of Jersey Girl.[7]

References

  1. ↑ "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved June 2, 2010. 
  2. ↑ http://asitecalledfred.com/old/story.html
  3. ↑ Rotten Tomatoes
  4. ↑ Armstrong, Mark (August 2, 2001). "GLAAD Strikes Back at 'Silent Bob'". eonline.com. Retrieved June 2, 2010. 
  5. ↑ Ascher-Walsh, Rebecca (August 3, 2001). "GLAAD, Don't Get Mad". EW.com. Retrieved June 2, 2010. 
  6. ↑ Smith, Kevin (July 31, 2001). "Some bad, bad news concerning me and GLAAD". viewaskew.com. Retrieved June 2, 2010. 
  7. ↑ Alter, Ethan. "CLERKS II". Film Journal International. Retrieved June 27, 2013. 

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