Clerks III (2022)

It's quite fun to try and spot the famous names who pepper this otherwise puerile and really rather unfunny film - but that was about it for me. It's all about a "Dante" (Brian O'Halloran) and "Elias" (Trevor Fehrman) who run a small-town store. They spend much of their day quoting lines from their favourite films until poor old "Elias" has an heart attack. Whisked to hospital, his friends decide to make a film about life in their convenience store. What now ensues may well offer us an isight into just how a sudden medical emergency can focus the attention and motivate people, but I just found the references either too in-your-face or absurdly obscure and contrived. Perhaps this will rate better in the USA, but here in the UK this just comes across as a rather sad indictment of rural life where it's all about weed and dumb wheezes. It is extremely difficult to marry the threads of humour and tragedy. Dark humour, in my view, is the hardest to write and play well - and I am afraid that nobody here really carries it off with much distinction. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood, but I didn't hear anyone else in the cinema laughing either. Not for me, sorry.