Looking at the scope of comedies from 1995 to 2025, things are really bleak. The comedy genre is in disarray due to the world constantly changing. People can’t say a lot of things that were said 30 years ago. Good writers and directors can make their way through these transformative times. Bad writers and directors will complain and say that, “everyone is soft and people are offended by too much.” Kevin Smith is a writer and director that can give you a mix of raunchy comedy and comedy with a good heart. And that’s exactly what his second film, Mallrats, delivered to audiences in 1995.
Kevin Smith was riding high off of his debut feature film Clerks which debuted at Sundance Film Festival in 1994. It was picked up by Miramax Pictures soon after its debut. Smith and his producing partner Scott Mosier couldn’t imagine their little black and white comedy making the impact that it did. The movie made four million dollars at the box office on a $24,000 budget. Surprisingly, a Universal Studios rep attended a Clerks screening and spoke to Smith and Mosier to see if they wanted to make their next movie at Universal. They accepted the offer and started pre-production on Mallrats.
Mallrats was a bigger production than Clerks in every way. They hired a full camera crew, sound technicians, and more. Smith and Mosier were intimidated by the bells and whistles of a full production crew but the actors that were hired and the script narrowed their focus. Unlike his first film, Smith wrote in more than two locations for the film, and supporting characters of Clerks (Jay and Silent Bob) were also back for this new installment in what would become known as the View Askewniverse. Producers wanted to find another actor to portray Jason Mewes’s Jay but Kevin Smith told them that there’s no way that he would recast that role. They didn’t want to lose the film, so Jason Mewes was kept on as Jay. The chemistry of the actors in the movie is obviously very strong. But there are many reasons why it’s beloved and turned into a cult classic many years later. I mean this movie is the very first movie to feature a cameo from the legend Stan Lee!
I’ve been watching Kevin Smith’s movies since I was in middle school. His humor has always been a great source of entertainment for me. The dialogue in Mallrats is definitely similar to Clerks but it’s more refined. He has more characters and locations to work with. The topics in Mallrats range from being dissatisfied with your job, frustration with parents, following your heart and doing what’s best for you, comic books, and music. Kevin’s writing is like if Tarantino wrote pure comedies. His characters have interesting conversations, they’re witty, and he has multiple landmarks that appear in various movies in the View Askewniverse. It’s a good thing to have characters and places that intertwine with each other in your own work. The character of Brodie Bruce (Jason Lee) is the Randall of this movie. He collects comic books, has trouble fully committing to his girlfriend Rene (Shannen Doherty), and he has the gift of gab. While T.S. (Jeremy London) is the lead in this film, it’s Jason Lee’s performance as Brodie that is the absolute stand out. His charisma and his big smile are two things that set him apart from Clerks’ Randall.
The first week box office numbers for Mallrats weren’t what they expected at all. Critics dragged the movie through the mud. According to Erection of an Epid: The Making of Mallrats, Kevin was extremely bummed out that this happened. He wanted a follow up to his debut smash hit to be as successful as the first. Kevin even contemplated giving up writing and directing all together, until the home video numbers came in. You would’ve thought there were joints attached to the Mallrats VHS box with the way that fans were buying them. Teens told producer Mosier that they loved the movie and that they didn’t know that it was in theaters. A lot of the audience for this movie was too young to go see rated R movies. Ironically, for the rest of Kevin Smith’s directing and writing career, the home video market would be the thing that kept View Askew productions lights on.
In my opinion, this movie is one of the defining comedies of the ‘90s. It features characters that are yearning for love, causing chaos, and seeking knowledge and refuge at their local shopping mall. Malls used to be a safe haven for kids and young adults in the past. You could go to work there, see a movie, shop at your favorite store, meet a person you’d take a liking to, kick it with your friends. We could spend a whole day at the mall and go back home with stories that your parents would play like they don’t understand. Nowadays, the youth don’t have a lot of places to go. Malls are dying due to online shopping and community centers are closing. I try to have hope that things can turn around for our youth. They need positivity in their lives. I know that by providing them with new and entertaining places to go that maybe one of these kids will want to make their own movies with their friends. Every filmmaker starts out by experimenting and doing it for the love of cinema.
