Josh Reviews The 4:30 Movie

It’s 1986, and high school kid Brian David has finally worked up the nerve to ask out his crush, Melody Barnegat, on a date.  They’ll go see the 4:30 showing of the movie Bucklick, which is an adaptation of Melody’s mom’s favorite book series.  Brian’s plan is to spend the day leading up to that watching movies with his friends Belly and Burny, in which they’ll each pay one admission ticket and then theatre-hop from movie to movie.  But complications pile up, and when the boys get banned for life from the theatre by the arrogant theatre-owner “Manager Mike”, Brian has to find a way to get back in to make his dream date happen.

The 4:30 Movie was written and directed by Kevin Smith, and it’s a sweet, semi-autographical story that I suspect captures many of Mr. Smith’s real experiences as a movie-loving kid growing up in the eighties in New Jersey.

I grew up loving Kevin Smith’s movies, and I still feel a lot of affection for his first five movies: Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.  But starting with 2004’s Jersey Girl, I felt that some of the magic was gone, and things got bleak with Mr. Smith’s 2014 film Tusk, which I thought was dreadful.  So I was off the Kevin Smith train for a while, but I feel he’s rebounded recently.  I had fun watching 2021’s Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, and I think that 2022’s Clerks III is pretty great until we get to the last 10-15 minutes, which I hated.

I enjoyed The 4:30 Movie!  I think Mr. Smith captured a nice tone of friends hanging out that I found to be endearing.  I really liked all four of the main kids, and I enjoyed watching their stories.  I like this film’s funny, sweet tone.  It’s a relatively small-scale story (without the cartoon adventure aspects of Jay and Silent Bob Reboot or the attempts to insert serious drama that hurt Clerks III, especially at the end).  This was a smart choice.  I like this mode for Kevin Smith.  His writing is sharp and funny, as always, but it’s a little less stylized than it sometimes is; these kids felt like real kids to me, which I was happy to see.

The film’s main failing is that the hi-jinks that ensue once the boys get to the movie theater weren’t quite entertaining enough.  I felt the movie sagged a bit in the middle.  Their main adversary, Ken Jeong’s “Manager Mike”, felt too one-note to me.  (A better model might have been the way Edward Rooney becomes increasingly unhinged — and increasingly funny — as he gets more and more desperate to defeat Ferris in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.)  As the movie continues, Mr. Smith has to resort to outlandish twists that rang false for me (for example, I didn’t buy that Belly would actually do what he does in the bathroom to get thrown out of the theater).  I wish Mr. Smith had done more to develop the universe of the movie theater itself, and explored more deeply the many different characters — employees and patrons — who filled it out.

Mr. Smith also has a habit I don’t love of having characters spell out the film’s themes in emotional monologues.  That happens twice here, and the scenes felt eye-rolling to me both times.  First, when Brian and Burny are fighting in the alley and Belly spells out their entire friendship dynamic, and then later when the theater usher (played by Genesis Rodriguez), who has no reason to know anything about Brian, gives him an inspirational “look in the mirror” speech declaring that he’s a filmmaker.  (I could see a world in which that moment was used to develop the usher’s character, as someone who watches and pays attention to people, and who has seen how Brian acts and talks with his friends, thus explaining how she has this insight into his character… but the film doesn’t go there.)  Those moments took me out of the film, because I didn’t believe them as being things these people would actually say.  (There were a few other moments like that in the film, such as a wish-fulfillment moment in which Melody calls Brian, who is basically playing a young Kevin Smith, the most interesting guy she’s ever met.)

The film works because the kids are great.  Austin Zajur is terrific as the lead character, Brian David.  I loved how good natured he made Brian; he’s got an infectious smile.  I was pleased that Mr. Zajur didn’t lean too heavily into geek/nerd cliches.  This isn’t The Big Bang Theory.   Mr. Zajur plays Brian as a relatively normal kid, and that was exactly the right choice.  Reed Northrup does a nice job as Belly, a classic sidekick character.  Mr. Northrup gives Belly a weirdness and an earnestness that he modulates well.  Nicholas Cirillo is also strong as Burny, who is far more confident and comfortable talking to girls than Brian or Belly.  Then there’s Siena Agudong, who turns in a star-making performance as Melody Barnegat.  This is a tough role, because Melody isn’t involved in the boys’ adventures in and around the movie theatre that make up the bulk of the story.  So she’s not actually in the movie that much, and as the object of Brian’s affections, this could have been a very thin, one-dimensional role.  But Ms. Agudong brings tremendous charisma and good humor to the role of Melody.  She commands the screen whenever we see her.  We understand instantly why Brian is in love with her, but also Ms. Agudong gives Melody a life and personality of her own.

Many of Mr. Smith’s ensemble of comedic performers pop up in small roles.  I smiled each time I saw a familiar face, including Jason Mewes, Justin Long, Jason Lee, Rosario Dawson, Jason Biggs, Jeff Anderson, Brian O’Halloran, Method Man, Diedrich Bader, Kate Micucci, Rachel Dratch, Genesis Rodriguez, Harley Quinn Smith, and more.  I have to make special note of Sam Richardson (Veep, The Afterparty), who is a hoot as the wrestler “Major Murder”.

Mr. Smith does a nice job channeling the eighties, stuffing the dialogue he gives these movie-fan kids to say with references to a million eighties flicks.  The title itself is a wonderful flashback to so many of us who watched the 4:30 movie on TV.  (Though I was a little surprised that, in the movie, the reference isn’t to watching a movie at home on TV — the phrase “the 4:30 movie” was popularized by the 4:30 movie that the New York based ABC affiliate would air on the weekdays in the seventies and eighties — but to an actual 4:30 movie in the theater…!)   (This is also a good time to plug the great The 4:30 Movie podcast, which has nothing to do with this movie but was inspired by those 4:30 movies on TV that I too watched in my youth.)  I laughed to see some familiar eighties bathroom wall graffiti.  I liked the fun Mr. Smith had with the fake trailers, especially the nun-turned-hooker one (Sister Sugar Walls).  Those were funny (though Mr. Smith has a habit of milking the joke too long — the first Sister Sugar Walls trailer clip was funny, but cutting back to it a second time was too much).  I laughed to see the seafood restaurant called Moby’s (a play on Moby Dick and also the fast food chain Mooby’s that has appeared in so many of Mr. Smith’s film); that was a nice reference to Mr. Smith’s universe of films (and less obvious than the Quick Stop reference in the mid-credits scene, which didn’t work for me).

I also quite enjoyed the score by Bear McCreary (Battlestar Galactica, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power).  I’ve often complained about the too-obvious comedic music in some of Mr. Smith’s films, but Mr. McCreary’s score leans into the naturalism, which works beautifully.

Let’s be honest: This 4:30 Movie isn’t in the pantheon of great teenager coming-of-age movies.  But it’s a sweet, funny film, and I had fun watching it.  I think Kevin Smith did a nice job, and I’d be interested to see him make more of this type of film!

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