After Randal (Jeff Anderson) has a heart attack the realisation that he has not done anything with his life prompts him to make a movie. Enlisting Dante (Brian O’Halloran), Jay (Jason Mewes), Silent Bob (Kevin Smith) and other friends to help him document the life of a Quick Stop Clerk he sets out to leave his legacy. 

If you are not already invested in Kevin Smith’s View Askew universe and the Clerks movies then this film is not for you. If you are though I can assure you that you will be ignoring all of its shortcomings for the warm cosy feeling of a family reunion love in. 

Opening with a montage set to My Chemical Romance’s ‘Welcome To The Black Parade’ we see Dante opening the Quick Stop before immediately closing it to play hockey on the roof. The result is that we are all immediately back in Smith’s world. Anyone who has watched Smith’s reality show about his comic store and his back catalogue will recognise everyone playing hockey up on that roof and the multitude of call backs to his other films. 

The rest of the film follows the same pattern. There are pop culture references, call backs to previous films and cameos galore. Jokes throughout the film reference Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, Richard Linklater, Christopher Nolan and Wes Anderson. And of course Smith finds cameos for his wife Jennifer Schwalbach Smith and his daughter Harley Quinn Smith. 

One particular scene is a microcosm of the whole endeavour really. When Dante and Randall hold auditions for the movie we get a cameo avalanche that includes Sarah Michelle Geller, Freddie Prinze Jr, Danny Trejo and Scott Mosier (View Askew’s co-creator). But we also have Ethan Suplee talking about sailboats (Mall Rats) and Ben Affleck doing an inside joke about the View Askew website message board. 

A plot does eventually appear featuring Rosario Dawson reprising her role from the second Clerks film and it fits firmly into what Smith does well. A schmaltzy story about friendship filled with puerile pop culture one liners. All of which is capped off by Smith talking over the credits of the movie about what this world means to him. 

Will it convert you to Kevin Smith movies? Absolutely not! Will it please his long term fans? 100%