The 4:30 Movie: Kevin Smith’s Clunky Coming-of-Age Film

Item: The 4:30 Movie: Kevin Smith's Clunky Coming-of-Age Film
Author: Edward Moran

by Edward Moran

As The 4:30 Movie opens, a teenaged boy is seen trying to arrange a date by calling his female inamorata on a clunky push-button landline. It is the summer of 1986, that antediluvian era before cellphones and social media had become the instruments of choice for romantic-minded adolescents. As I watched this coming-of-age movie, I could not help thinking how that bland, beige telephone could be such a harbinger of the clunkiness that was to come.

Written and directed by Kevin Smith, this C-rated movie (C for clunkiness, of course) is the most autobiographical of his sixteen films. Like many of his earlier offerings, The 4:30 Movie is set in his native New Jersey. Smith has reflected that he was inspired to use local venues in his own films after seeing Richard Linklater’s comedy Slacker on his twenty-first birthday in 1991: “It was the movie that got me off my ass; it was the movie that lit a fire under me, the movie that made me think, ‘Hey, I could be a filmmaker.’ And I had never seen a movie like that before ever in my life.”

Perhaps Smith’s insistence on filming in local venues is why The 4:30 Movie has such a low-budget, outsider feel to it. Nothing wrong with that in principle, but I wish Smith would have at least acknowledged that editing is a crucial and indispensable part of the cinematic process. Unfortunately, the film gives the impression that Smith has rushed this film into theaters prematurely, disregarding the advantages that careful editing could provide.

Smith’s offerings over the years have included a number of horror films–like Red State, Tusk, and Yoga Hosers—as well as works based on comic-book characters such as Batman and Spider-Man. Both these genres are perhaps more forgiving of editing lapses, but not when it comes to a romantic comedy where viewers expect greater attention to character development as opposed to action-packed scenes involving mayhem and graphic depictions. The 4:30 Movie, by contrast, is a psycho-emotional story that requires a different set of criteria.

The official synopsis of the film reveals what is at stake here: “Set in the summer of 1986, The 4:30 Movie is a coming-of-age story about three sixteen-year-old friends who spend their Saturdays sneaking into movies at the local multiplex. But when one of the guys also invites the girl of his dreams to see the latest comedy, each of the teens will learn something serious about life and love before the credits roll.”

As the credits mercifully rolled, I felt genuine sympathy with the legions of people who contributed so much of their time and talent to this film. The premise—sneaking into a movie theater on a Saturday afternoon in Jersey—certainly has comic potential. Admittedly, there are plenty of laugh-provoking scenes depicting mischievous teenagers trying to outwit a frustrated, pompous cineplex manager. But for the first hour or so, these escapades are mindlessly flung at us like so many pies in a slapstick flick, giving viewers little opportunity to savor any substance beneath the whipped cream.

Don’t get me wrong; I very much wanted to like this film. The 4:30 Movie is replete with competent and engaging cast members, notably Austin Zajur and Siena Agudong (the two lovepuppies referred to in the first paragraph above) as well as the harried theater manager, played by Ken Jeung. But we really don’t get to know them or their motivations until the final moments of the film, when the two lovepuppies are seen basking in the warm glow of romance at last. It’s a shame viewers have to sit through an hour or more of unedited clunkiness to appreciate what could have been a more enjoyable movie.