With the high-def format war officially over and impeccably digitized movies coming to your home television any day now, the sentiment behind Michael Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind – namely, that the sterilized consumption of movies has ruined mom and pop shops and cheapened the experience of film – is easy to understand. But for a movie that seems so in love with cinema, it would be nice to see a more carefully constructed concept.

The film is set in Passaik, N.J., the imaginary birthplace of real-live jazz musician Fats Waller. The lie is perpetrated most by Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover), the owner of Be Kind Rewind, a run-down VHS rental shop. Though he and his long-suffering clerk Mike (Mos Def) are well liked by the residents of the downtrodden industrial community, business is floundering and the store is in danger of being razed to make room for condominiums. When Mr. Fletcher goes off to a conference commemorating Waller’s death, he leaves the failing store in Mike’s hands, leaving him explicit instructions to keep Jerry (Jack Black), the bull-in-a-china-shop mechanic who often visits and annoys Mr. Fletcher, out of the store.

Mike fails in his prime objective and, after Jerry tries to break into the power plant he lives outside of and gets electrocuted to the point of magnetization, all the tapes in the store are wiped clean. To keep their dimwitted customers quiet and avoid trouble with Mr. Fletcher, Mike and Jerry record their own versions of the movies to rent out. When the community at large gets wind of the idea, morale around the moribund town is raised, people want to help creating the movies, and the clerks become local celebrities.

Clearly, the highlight of the film is Mike and Jerry’s recreations of classic movies like Ghostbusters and Boyz n the Hood. Black and Def are talented comedians who quickly adapt to any of the genres presented before them, and their delight at handling some of the movies is palpable.

But beyond staying out of hot water with the boss, there’s no stated reason for continuing the remakes. Sure, the community rallies around itself as word of the “sweded” videos spreads, but not enough is made of it. Meanwhile, Glover’s character is left hanging out to dry, far away from any interesting action and without a decent plotline to carry himself. When the attention is turned to Mr. Fletcher, in fact, the film gets downright boring.

If Gondry’s breakthrough film was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, then Be Kind Rewind is more like a cloudy day. There are bright spots to be had, but too often, the film can’t find the light and loses direction.

Rating: * * * of 5

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