Mallrats

Mallrats is an offbeat comedy with almost no plot, and if you are not a fan of writer-director Kevin Smith's off-the-wall humour, you should stay well clear.

The film is about a bunch of more or less peculiar young people killing time at the shopping mall. Brodie and T.S. have lost their girlfriends on the same morning. Brodie claims he couldn't care less about his ex Rene, but is that really so when it comes down to it? His friend T.S., on the other hand, is clearly heartbroken that Brandi has dumped him, and he racks his brains over how to win her back. Brodie thinks the duo Jay and Silent Bob, a fixture of Kevin Smith's films, can help, but the question is whether T.S. would not be better off without the assistance of that crackpot pair.

Compared with Smith's debut, the charming and original "Clerks", which admittedly did not have its strength in storytelling either, Mallrats looks like a half-hearted effort.