It’s getting tiresome hating on Kevin Smith. I’ve taken issue with the filmmaker in the past, but I’m not above acknowledging being a fan of the man’s work growing up. Thing is, and I think Smith’s smart enough to realize it, those of us blessed with emotional development have simply outgrown his body of work. I can watch Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back and understand why it was funny to me at 13, and I can even appreciate Will Hunting shouting “Its hunting season!” before gutshotting a man challenging his intellectualism. But that’s pretty much where it ends.
So when Smith promises Hit Somebody is his last film, I’m inclined to now believe him. His other ventures (reality TV, comics, Jay & Bob merch) have proven lucrative enough where the two sides, Smith and cinema, don’t need each other anymore*. A while back, the plan was to do Smith’s ode to hockey as two films. In a conversation with The Playlist, he graciously points out that that will no longer be the case:
The problem with ‘Hit Somebody’ is that I wanted to do it as two movies. It’s tough to get one hockey movie made, let alone two. So I’ve switched back to one movie. I had one-and-a-half scripts that I had to get down to one. I want to get it down to a 150-page script and I know that’s longer than the average script length but I figure I give myself a two-and-a-half hour length on paper knowing that I’m really ruthless in editorial and I can get it down to 2, 2:05, because this is a movie that takes place over 30 years.
So one movie, right? Not so fast, as Slashfilm now points out that Smith has threatened to adapt the material into a mini-series. So which Smith do we believe?
Preferrably the one that gets it over with the quickest. If anyone needs me, I’ll be watching Goon in the back.
*The success of Clerks was monumental in bringing indie films to the forefront in the 90s, so I’d argue, for better or worse, there was absolutely a time when cinema needed a Kevin Smith.