1 week Ago By Subhash K Jha
Bunking school to run to the movies, buying a ticket for one film, and then hiding in the loo to sneak into the next show, making out in the last row, whistling and clapping when Shammi Kapoor/Elvis Presley broke into a jolly jig. Those are the stuff movie-theatre nostalgia is made of. Sadly Kevin Smith’s new hark-back comedy The 4:30 Movie is just not likeable.
It’s about a bunch of aimless teenagers crushing more on their neighbourhood movie theatre than the movies. The whole razzmatazz is a bit of a bore. No, make that a pain rather than a bore.
The breakneck storytelling ensures we don’t lose interest in the goings-on. But it is a low-budget, low-maintenance, low-aspiration endeavour which seems to have clicked with its target the audience that gets it although there is nothing to get. The sense of belonging that you may feel while watching The 4:30 Movie comes entirely from your own single-theatre experiences in the 1980s.
Otherwise, the jejune protagonists with their acne-hued acumen are as memorable as flies at a street-side mithai shop. It is hard to distinguish one callow protagonist from another. They all speak at the same time and speak nonsense picked up from movies.
Suffice it to say that the first half hinges on Brian (Austin Zajur) inviting his crush Melody (Siena Agudong) for an adult movie at the Atlantis movie theatre. ALSO READ: A Mistake: Elizabeth Banks Starrer Medical Drama Shakes You Up As Cinema Is Meant To The intended humour of Melody’s mother barging into the movie theatre and catching Melody with Brian, is so basic, it feels painfully undernourished. The second-half moves into a park where Brian runs into an usher (Genesis Rodriguez) from his movie theatre.
She is known simply as the Usher. They discuss cerebral movies, cheesy movies, forgotten movies, unforgettable movies, etc. I wonder which category The 4:30 Movie falls into.
It is too shallow in content to qualify as nostalgia, too bustling to be more than a clever hustle. The only really rounded and delectable character is the movie-theatre manager (played by Ken Jeong) who is so sarcastic and nasty, he peps up the proceedings in a movie that seems as daft as its character. At most this is vapid-fire experience, is less nostalgia, more attic-level junk.
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