Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (R, 2001)

Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (played by screenwriter/director Smith) are two small-time drug dealers who spend their lives hanging out in front of the convenience store that provided the setting for Smith's first film, Clerks. In his third film, Cashing Amy, it turned out that they were the inspiration for the offbeat superhero stars of a successful comic book created by the lead characters (played by Ben Affleck and Jason Lee). In the latest installment, Jay and Silent Bob find out that there is going to be a movie based on the comic book, and they go to Hollywood to stop the production. Along the way, they run into the Scooby-Doo gang, a minivan of gorgeous girls and a guy with a guitar who say that they are on their way to protest animal testing, just about every character from the previous four movies, and many of today's hottest young stars, happy to show everyone that they are not taking themselves too seriously.

If you don't already know who Jay and Silent Bob are, see Smith's other movies before you see this one. But hard-core Kevin Smith fans (I don't think there are any other kind) will find JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK just the movie they were waiting for. It's a love letter to his characters and to his fans, a sort of movie equivalent to the holiday greetings the Beatles used to send out to members of their fan club. Jay and Silent Bob is filled the cheery vulgarity, sweet sprit, deliriously crackpot dialogue, and cornecopia of arcane references to pop culture and to Smith's view askew world. In other words, it is the ultimate culmination of Smith's oeuvre. It either clears the decks and enables him to move on to something new, or it just paves the way for another round of Red Hook-based, self-referential little gems.

This movie is a sort of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (or The Wind Done Gone) of Smith's previous movies. He has taken two tangential characters who have appeared in all of the other films and given them their own movie. This is the kind of movie that has Ben Affleck say, "Who would pay to see a movie about Jay and Silent Bob?" and then turn toward the camera to give those of us who did a knowing wink. Everyone on screen makes fun of the movie, the characters, and themselves. Smith fans will have a lot of fun -- and even more when the DVD comes out and they can add another layer of arcania and in-jokes.