Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

Kevin Smith

Writers (WGA):

Kevin Smith (characters)
Kevin Smith (written by)

Release Date:

24 August 2001 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Comedy

Tagline:

Hollywood had it coming

Plot:

The comic 'Bluntman and Chronic' is based on real-life stoners Jay and Silent Bob, so when they get no profit from a big-screen adaptation they set out to wreck the movie.

Plot Keywords:

Jay And Silent Bob | Hollywood | Police | New Jersey | Orangutan

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Jason Mewes	...	Jay
Kevin Smith	...	Silent Bob
Ben Affleck	...	Holden McNeil / Himself
Jeff Anderson	...	Randal Graves
Brian O'Halloran	...	Dante Hicks (as Brian Christopher O'Halloran)
Shannon Elizabeth	...	Justice
Eliza Dushku	...	Sissy
Ali Larter	...	Chrissy
Jennifer Schwalbach Smith	...	Missy (as Jennifer Schwalbach)
Will Ferrell	...	Federal Wildlife Marshal Willenholly
Jason Lee	...	Brodie Bruce / Banky Edwards
Judd Nelson	...	Sheriff
George Carlin	...	Hitchhiker
Carrie Fisher	...	Nun
Seann William Scott	...	Brent

Also Known As:

VA5 (USA) (working title)
View Askew 5 (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for nonstop crude and sexual humor, pervasive strong language, and drug content.

Runtime:

104 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Iceland:14 | Iceland:16 (video rating) | Finland:K-15 | USA:R (No. 38444) | USA:TV-MA (tv rating) | Hong Kong:III | Argentina:13 | Australia:MA | Brazil:14 | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:18A | Denmark:15 (DVD rating) | France:U | Germany:12 | Ireland:18 | Israel:16 | Japan:PG-12 | Mexico:B | Netherlands:16 | New Zealand:R16 | Norway:15 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:R(A) (original rating) | Singapore:R21 (re-rating) | South Korea:18 | Spain:18 | Sweden:11 | UK:18

Filming Locations:

Camarillo, California, USA

Company:

Dimension Films

Trivia:

Will Ferrell's character's name "Marshall Willenholly" refers to Marshall, Will, and Holly, characters from the TV series "Land of the Lost" (1974). Interestingly enough, Will would go on to play the character Park Ranger Rick Marshall in the 2009 movie.

Goofs:

Errors in geography: When Jay and Silent Bob wake up from the Scooby Doo scene, the sign says they are at Twister Park in Kansas City, MO, where they then meet Justice in the Mooby Drive-in. In the van with Justice, Chrissy, Missy and Sissy, the girls say they are members of the Kansas State Chapter of Students Against Animal Cruelty. Kansas City is east of Kansas, and Colorado, where they're going is west. It is highly unlikely they would have gone east of Kansas before going west of Kansas.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Silent Bob's Mother: Bobby Boy, stay here while mommy picks up the free cheese, kay? Here, this will keep the sun out of your eyes.
[puts a baseball cap on his head backwards]
Silent Bob's Mother: You be good, now.
[walks in store, then Jay and his Mom arrive]
Jay's Mother: Alright, don't you fuckin' move you little shit machine. Your Momma's going to try to score.
Passerby: What the hell? 'Scuse me. Who's watching these babies?
Jay's Mother: Uh... the fat one's watchin the little one?
Passerby: Oh yeah, nice parenting. Leave 'em out here like that and see what happens.
Jay's Mother: YO, FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING SQUARE!
Passerby: Oh yeah, keep on truckin'!
Jay's Mother: [to infant Jay] Did ya hear that fuckin' guy tellin' me how to fuckin' raise ya? What a motherfucker, man! Who the fuck does that fuckin' guy think he is? What's the worst fuckin' thing that can fuckin' happen to ya just standing outside a fuckin' store, right? Fuck!
[Jay's mother walks into the record store, leaving infant Jay and Silent Bob in their strollers]
Baby Jay: [his first words] Fuck... fuck... fuck... fuck...

Movie Connections:

Featured in Back to the Well: Clerks II (2006) (V)

Soundtrack:

The Devil's Song

CU Film Critic takes on "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back."

Whether or not you enjoy `Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back' is going to depend a lot on whether or not you enjoy director Kevin Smith. I, for one, think the guy is a genius. If you don't mind my lauding his name, read on. First, a little background for the uninitiated.

Kevin Smith's movies (Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, and now JSBSB) are a world created by the director himself, in the sense that all are interconnected by characters, plot points, and subtle references. The one constant, though, is the entity known as Jay and Silent Bob, a pair of pot dealers who have more or less spent their entire lives standing in front of the Quik-Stop convenience store. Jay (Jason Mewes) is the long-haired guy we all knew in high school, his endless stream of four-letter epithets almost endearing because the goofy guy just doesn't know any better. Silent Bob (played by director Kevin Smith), Jay's self-described `hetero life-mate' stands by without speaking a word and provides some sort of moral counterpoint for the duo.

In Smith's `Chasing Amy,' Banky and Holden (Jason Lee and Ben Affleck, respectively) created a comic book entitled `Bluntman and Chronic,' based on their real-life buddies Jay and Silent Bob. Fast-forward to `Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.'

Banky has sold the rights to his comic to Miramax pictures, leaving Jay and Silent Bob in the dark about the business deal. Jay and Bob, with help from Holden, discover via the Internet (`What's the Internet?' asks Jay) that a movie based on them is about to start production. Realizing that they won't see a dime of the money, and even more upset by their defamation on Internet message boards, they decide to truck across the country to stop the film from being produced.

It's important to note that while the comedy is crude, slapstick, and even resorts to fart jokes, it's not dumb comedy, it's satire at it's finest, reminiscent of such self-deprecating masterpieces as `Pee-Wee's Big Adventure' and `Blazing Saddles.' After the fairly serious `Chasing Amy' and the spiritually overtoned `Dogma,' we see that Smith has decided to get together with his buddies and put together one big inside joke. Fortunately, he's decided to let a few of us in on it. The viewer's enjoyment of the movie is going to depend completely on his or her knowledge of Smith's previous films and characters.

Smith's friends show up in cameos, from Chris Rock to Will Ferrell to Alanis Morrissette to Carrie Fisher to Mark Hamill (Smith is an infamous Star Wars fanatic). You can literally see a man's childhood dream coming true when at one point, Smith's Bob gets to carry on a lightsaber duel with Hamill.

Local interest: In one of the many subplots, a group of female jewel thieves bring Jay and Silent Bob to our very own Boulder, Colorado, to steal a monkey from a medical testing facility. `Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back' is a comedy, and doesn't try to be anything else. The only thing I felt was missing was one of Jason Lee's inspired monologues bitterly bemoaning the state of society. Some of Shannon Elizabeth's screen time could have been cut, I felt, in favor of some trademark Smith dialogue.

Smith now intends to focus his time on more dramatic pursuits, and we are given this as the fifth and last film in his so-called `Jersey Trilogy.' The bottom line is, Smith loves his fans, and this film was created for the loyal. A fitting send-off for Jay and Silent Bob, this film gets an `A-.'