Director: Kevin Smith
Screenplay: Kevin Smith
Starring: Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Marilyn Ghigliotti, Lisa Spooner, Jason Mewes, Kevin Smith, Scott Mosier
Running Time: 92 minutes
Genre: Comedy, slice-of-life
The film follows a day in the life Dante Hicks (O'Halloran), a 22 year old employee of the Quick Stop convenience store in Leonardo, New Jersey, who is forced to go into work on what is supposed to be his day off. He finds himself having to deal with his girlfriend Veronica's (Ghigliotti) sexual confessions, the fact that the love of his life is getting married, a hockey game, a funeral and an endless stream of weird, stupid and abusive customers. Also stuck in Dante's purgatory are his best friend (and possibly worst enemy) Randall Graves (Anderson) and drug dealers Jay (Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith).
This super low-budget film marks the debut of writer/director/actor Kevin Smith and is the first of his connected series of "View Askewniverse" films (named after Smith's View Askew production company), which are linked by recurring characters and story elements, most notably the characters of Jay and Silent Bob who would go on to appear in many other films.
The film was shot in grainy black and white in the convenience store where Smith was working at the times, at night and on the weekends. At the beginning of the film, Dante discovers that the metal shutters of the store are gummed shut, this was partly to hide the fact that although the film is set during the day, it was mostly shot at night. With it's, at the time, completely unknown cast, grainy look and low-budget feel it has an element of authenticity and does at times resemble a documentary, filmed on a store security camera. Crucially, it's also very funny. Smith's sharp, vulgar and endlessly quotable dialogue is perceptive and hilarious, although definitely not for the easily offended. With the directionless characters, fascinated by pop-culture, working crappy jobs, dreaming of something better but unsure of how to get it, this is one of the great films about young adulthood.
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