Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back [2001]

August 10, 2009

I simply love stoner movies. Probably because I’m a stoner myself but that’s beside the point. And the point is we have here in front of us one best stoner comedies out there. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is a movie about two stoners who find out someone is making a movie about them and decide to do something about it. This decision will set them on a journey to Hollywood full of adventures and mishaps. And a lot of weed. However, the real journey of these two characters began much, much earlier in a little movie that goes by the name Clerks.

Kevin Smith continued to write about them over the years and so they appear in a lot of his movies. Most prominently in Dogma that has a lot in common with the movie we’re talking about today. Both of them are road movies, just like one of my favorite ones Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. Ahh, those were the days my friends, although I do appreciate all the work Judd Apatow is putting in. Along with Seth Rogen, of course. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is a movie full of crude and offensive humor delivered in an intelligent way. A sort of a thinking man’s stoner movie, if such a thing is possible.

There will be a lot of jokes about sex, drugs, women, and other stuff that might interest two stoners who spent their days shooting the shit. And that song man, here I am ten years after I heard the first time and I still know it by heart. Drinking beers, beers, beers, rolling fatties, smoking blunts… Who smokes the blunts? We smoke the blunts! However, to say that Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is just a movie about stoners and weed would be a mistake. Kevin Smith fires accurate shots against pretty much everybody. And I love how the entire plot revolves are cash-hungry studios trying to capitalize on the success of the X-Men movie.

So, they find a comic about Bluntman and Chronic and decide to turn it into a movie. And that’s exactly what happened in real life with this new flood of movies based on comic books. Speaking of movies, there will be a lot of cool references and cameos. Moreover, you can almost consider Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back a parody. Charlie’s Angels, The Fugitive, Scream, and E.T. are just some of the movies on display here. I mean, Carrie Fisher appears as a nun who gives a ride to our two hapless stoners. We’ve also got none other than the conductor himself, George Carlin, the greatest stand-up comic in the world.

Chris Rock, Will Ferrell, and Jason Lee along with my high school crush Shannon Elizabeth (Nadia from American Pie) all make an appearance. However, the show is confidently run by Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes. These two loveable and quite immature losers are the source of endless witty remarks and hilarious gags. They remind me a bit of what Sacha Baron Cohen was trying to do not just with Borat but also with Ali G Indahouse. I also have to say that the whole van full of hot chicks part of the movie reminds me a lot of Death Proof.

Finally, you might be wondering if there are any more of these movies. These hilarious road trip comedies with zany humor and colorful characters. The answer is yes, yes there are. You can start with Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, continue with Tenacious D, and finish things off with Road Trip.