Read @ Joe’s

Title: The 4:30 Movie (2024) Director: Kevin Smith Writer: Kevin Smith Studio: View Askew Productions // Saban Films IMDb Plot: A group of teens in the 1980s spend the day theater-hopping. Joe Says: The 4:30 Movie is a charming, delightful movie that might possess the DNA of those raunchy Jay and Silent Bob outings but has a stronger genealogy to the films of John Hughes, Amy Heckerling, and Savage Steve Holland.

Author Kevin Smokler, like many a Gen X-er, has a love for 80s teens movies. In his book Brat Pack America, Smokler postulates that the location of these teen movies is just as important as the starring characters and their in-the-moment consequential situations. That, fictional or not,  Back to the Future’s Hill Valley, the Santa Cruz pier in The Lost Boys, and the Sherman Oaks Galleria from Fast Times at Ridgemont High fortify those memories and ground the slightly-mythic telling of the movie into a realistic impression.

Not too far away from the 80s, another cinematic location was introduced and has been visited, from time-to-time, over the past 30 years since 1994: Leonardo, New Jersey’s Quick Stop. 

Both stomping ground and home turf – as well as occasional hockey rink – Kevin Smith introduced the Quick Stop with Clerks along with the complaining Dante Hicks and RST Video denizen Randal Graves. Throughout his various View Askew movies, the Quick Stop, Red Bank, and its surrounding Atlantic Highlands has become a geek-lovin’ Mecca for the weird, the semi-employed, and the lustful.

Smith returns to the Atlantic Highlands in his new movie that not only spotlights a little of the Jersey shore, but mostly transpires in another magical arena: the town movie theater.

Utilizing all of his nostalgic wonder, Smith establishes The 4:30 Movie as a true 80s teen movie. The 4:30 Movie is a charming, delightful movie that might possess the DNA of his raunchy Jay and Silent Bob outings but has a stronger genealogy to the films of John Hughes, Amy Heckerling, and Savage Steve Holland.

The 4:30 Movie follows the typical 80s teen movie map: wacky friends with plans for the day, unrequited love, annoying parents, an arch nemesis adult, and words of wisdom from a visiting celebrity. During the summer of ‘86, Brian David (Austin Zajur) finally, and successfully, asks out Melody (Siena Agudong) on a date. They plan to meet up for a 4:30 showing of a Fletch-like detective movie and even though its R rating is detrimental to the sixteen-year-olds, Brian has a plan. He and friends Burny and Belly scheme to movie hop all day with ideas to simply saddle into those taboo seats at the appropriate time. Yet misaligned happenstances, and a grumpy theater manager (Ken Jeong), threaten to upturn the day. The 4:30 Movie is a coming of age story filled with mastabatory fantasies, awkward adult encounters, and the realization of one’s passions.

Smith wrote Clerks using his time as an actual movie rental clerk for inspiration. Similarly, Smith has called upon his time as a theater-hopping Jersey teen from the 80s to craft another crazy day-in-the-life. 

Clocking in at barely 90 minutes, Smith quickly establishes the friends, their quirks, and their dreams all through the recognizable, if potty-mouthed, dialogue that has become the Jersey-native’s trademark. Zajur especially is a humorously enjoyable lead who both blazes his own path in a fresh movie yet can ideally be seen as a prequel version of Clerks’ Dante Hicks. And Smith has no problem getting meta in his humor in mocking 80s movies while also jabbing away at the 21st century state of Star Wars and easy-if-apt shots at selected celebrities. The 4:30 Movie feels both comfortable and unique, and stupid and charming, while honoring the love of movies. 

Aside from the usual teen antics and uncensored sex-talk, The 4:30 Movie also allows Smith to produce some cleverly-created and nostalgia-filled fake movie trailers. Similar to what cinematic contemporaries Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez established in their 2007 collaboration Grindhouse, Smith intersperses his movie with campy horror and revenge-thriller vignettes that, similar to those mock-ups in Grindhouse, nearly beg for a full-length release. 

The only motif Smith slips on is the absence of the typical 80s pop-music soundtrack. Fan-favorite composer Bear McCreary lays down a fun synth-pop score, but some of the budget should have been allocated for Kenny Loggins, Robert Palmer, or Huey Lewis and the ever-lovin News tracks to complete an immersive 80s experience. After all, he did manage to score Morris Day for Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

Similar to how Smith crafted his love letter to fans with Clerks III, The 4:30 Movie represents a stronger, smoother style of storytelling. The jokes remain ever-constant, as do the wacky situations, but Smith has matured. He still maintains a fantasy version of his corner of Jersey but has filled it with more than just stoned-out losers and Gen X-ers that really do not want to be in the retail business. With 4:30, Smith has proven his thesis that movies help you deal with life. And with a little cinematic magic, life in Leonardo, New Jersey, regardless of the decade, is not all that bad.