A Director Profile: Kevin Smith

In co-ordinance with his new movie Cop Out coming out in a few weeks, I decided to say a few words on Kevin Smith. Now, if you have been watching tv lately, you might have seen some commercials for Cop Out and you might not think too much of it. The red band trailer however is pretty funny and makes the movie more desirable to check out. It's right here

Now I love Kevin Smith. I love his personality, I love his frank-ness, I like how accessible he is to his fans and the relationship he has with his fans is great. In the '90s, he made a couple of great films. Clerks and Dogma are very enjoyable, very different with great, smart comic writing. Mallrats is a bit underrated but I guess it can be seen as a lesser work compared to those two. Chasing Amy, however, is his best work by far. In fact, Chasing Amy is so good it has since lead me to sort of resent Kevin Smith for not attempting to go down that road again.

Like I said before, he has a great relationship with his fans. That type of accessibility is definitely part of what makes him so cool, but I also am afraid it might force him to make career decisions that aren't necessary. Clerks II isn't a bad film, but it felt odd that he went back down that road after seemingly closing that chapter of his career after Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. But, ok, so he wanted to end it right. Fine, I can respect that. But, here's the truth, folks... as much as Kevin Smith is great to listen to and even though he started out his career promising enough, he has not grown or matured as a director. Zack and Miri Make a Porno is enjoyable, but definitely does not have the re-watchability that his earlier work has. In fact, none of the films he made in the last decade were anything above average.

With the box office disappointment of Zack and Miri, it seems that Kevin Smith is taking a step back and trying to recover. Instead of getting out of the game for awhile, he decided to go right back and make another film. This time, from someone else's material. Obviously when you watch the red band trailer, you can see that the material is still very much in line with what Kevin Smith is used to; you can see what attracted him to the script in the first place. And I hope Cop Out does well. I hope it's a good movie. But I also hope one day that he's able to make material as high quality as Chasing Amy. Chasing Amy's combination of potty-mouth humor and raw, emotional drama is simply unmatched. Kevin Smith can do drama... very well. Jersey Girl was in the right direction, but it didn't have the same flavor as Amy did. Something has been missing in his work since that movie and I don't quite know what it is. I think Jersey Girl failed because it was a PG-13 Kevin Smith movie and we all know that he's a Rated-R filmmaker. As talented as Tarantino and PT Anderson are, I don't see them ever making a PG-13 movie. Not that it's bad to make one, but they're not PG-13 directors. Neither is Kevin Smith, which is part of what makes him so special.

Kevin Smith is about to turn 40 years old. Some directors don't even start making movies until they're 40. So, he has a long way to go just yet. He's a nice guy, he's funny, he's an interesting character. But I wonder if he'll ever get back to making really great films instead of movies where the entertainment is skin deep only. He doesn't think he has the talent and that's a shame. He does have the talent, he just hasn't gone through the depths of it for the past 10 years. I'm not expecting any cinematic masterpieces from him, but I think he could be a vulgar, less neurotic version of Woody Allen for the rest of his career. Would you say Woody Allen has ever made a masterpiece? Maybe not, depending on your definition. But Annie Hall, Manhattan, Broadway Danny Rose, Hannah and Her Sisters, and Crimes and Misdemeanors are some of the greatest films of the '70s and '80s. They are the epitome of what makes Woody Allen great. They are Woody Allen films through and through and they are great. Kevin Smith can be someone like that. Someone whose greatest films are still very much Kevin Smith films and they are great because they are the zenith of Kevin Smith's talents.

Maybe I lost you with that comparison, but my point is that he doesn't have to stray too far to make great films. He just has to stop trying to please his fans and start making movies where you can tell come deep from his heart. Maybe that's what is missing from his movies in the last decade. They're not bad movies, they just don't have much heart. Whereas, all of his movies in the '90s had heart and Clerks and Chasing Amy had heart and were brilliant.

So, here's to Kevin Smith for all his future successes. I'm still a fan of yours, but I expect a lot more out of you and I hope you can prove me right.

Cop Out comes out on February 26th.