Plot: Writer-director Kevin Smith presents his most personal film to date with this coming-of-age story — set in the summer of 1986 — that follows three sixteen-year-old friends who spend their Saturdays sneaking into movies at the local cineplex. When one of the guys invites the girl of his dreams to see an R-rated film, all hilarity breaks loose, as a self-important theater manager and teen rivalries interfere with his best-laid plans.
Review: I have been a Kevin Smith fan since I saw Clerks in the mid-90s. Smith had a solid run over the early course of his career, but the 2010s were less kind from a critical standpoint. While I have stood by his projects even when the quality was less than I knew he was capable of, my gut told me that Kevin Smith had another great project in him. I am happy to say that The 4:30 Movie is Smith’s best film since Chasing Amy and ranks at the top of his filmography. A heartfelt ode to teenage life, The 4:30 Movie still boasts crude humor but is a far more nuanced and emotionally centered film than he has done in a very long time. At once a love letter to movies and the bygone 1980s, The 4:30 Movie is a lot like Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans but told in the way we have come to expect from the creator of Jay and Silent Bob.
The 4:30 Movie opens with Brian David (Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark‘s Austin Zajur) prepping a snack and calling his crush Melody Barnegat (Siena Agudong) to invite her to the movies. While Brian and Melody shared a kiss the year prior, it took him a long time to work up the courage to ask her out. They agree to meet at the local theater for the titular four-thirty showing when she says yes. Brian then spends the rest of the day with his best friends Burny (Nicholas Cirillo) and Belly (Reed Northrup), who plan to sneak into various movies throughout the day, leading to the R-rated comedy where Melody will join them. On their way, the trio faces theater honcho, Manager Mike (Ken Jeong), who wants nothing more than to ban them from his establishment. With the help of a hot usher (Genesis Rodriguez) and wrestling superstar Major Murder (Sam Richardson), Brian may finally get the girl of his dreams.
What makes The 4:30 Movie work as well as it does is that despite masturbation jokes, plentiful profanity, and some sexual content, the movie really has its heart in the right place. Nowhere near the crass humor of American Pie, Smith’s film is a lot closer to Fast Times at Ridgemont High and early John Hughes films rather than Mallrats or Dogma. There is no appearance from Jay or Silent Bob, though we do get cameos from Clerks veterans Brian O’Halloran, Jeff Anderson, and Jason Mewes. Many ViewAskew actors from prior Kevin Smith projects, including the director’s wife, Jennifer Schwalbach, daughter, Harley Quinn Smith, Rosario Dawson, Justin Long, Jason Lee, and more, pop up. While some Smith films have felt like favors called in by the director to pad the cast with famous faces, this cast is predominantly cameo-free outside of the aforementioned mainstays from prior productions. At a brisk eighty-eight-minute running time, Smith keeps the narrative focused on Brian’s quest to reach his date with Melody, but there is still plenty of time for side plots and pop culture references.
Brian David is clearly based on Smith himself, right down to his encyclopedic knowledge of movies and television, but Zajur does not try to impersonate the director. Like The Fabelmans, this is a fictionalized story rooted in the director’s memories and experiences but changed for dramatic and comedic effect. Smith also uses the movie theater location to include some fake trailers, such as those created by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, along with other filmmakers for Grindhouse. The trailers range from a slasher to a Ghoulies/Critters-esque monster movie to the nunsploitation Sister Sugar Walls featured in the theatrical trailer for The 4:30 Movie. The trailers are entirely shown, while scenes from the Flash Gordon-esque movie that the teens sneak into have clips featuring Diedrich Bader and rapper Logic. While Smith includes callouts for some real franchises like Jaws and Poltergeist, the posters and movies featured on screen are all original creations, adding a nice little easter egg dimension to the film.
Filmed during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA Strike, The 4:30 Movie was shot on location at Smodcastle Cinemas, a theater co-owned by Smith. By keeping the film local, Kevin Smith emulates the indie feel of his early films while paying homage to the movies that defined his teenage years. Kevin Smith movies have always worn their hearts on their sleeves, with Clerks, Mallrats, and Chasing Amy each having an emotional center that grounded the otherwise ridiculous comedic moments. But The 4:30 Movie may be the most honest film that Smith has made since Chasing Amy and is all the more sincere as it is rooted in his own experiences. Sure, some of the jokes fall flat and may be familiar to those of us who grew up with the same cinematic interests, but they all feel genuine and get a boost thanks to the youthful cast instead of Smith’s repertory players who have all aged out of leading movies like this.
The 4:30 Movie is Kevin Smith’s most genuine film of his career as a director and perfectly aligns with the classic teen-centric films of the 1980s. Full of reverence and homage for the movies of that decade and a soundtrack of classic tunes, this movie serves as a refreshing change of pace from Smith’s run of Jay and Silent Bob movies and Clerks sequels. As much as I want to see more of those characters and still await the long-in-development Mallrats sequel, The 4:30 Movie is the best thing Smith has made in almost thirty years. Stay tuned through to the film’s end for a nice little easter egg moment, and enjoy this ode to denim jackets and non-existent social media through the humor of one of the more distinct pop culture filmmakers.