An Evening With Kevin Smith 2 - Evening Harder DVD Review

When Kevin Smith isn’t busy procrastinating future films, he tours and does Q&A interviews for a fee. Essentially what started as a favor for a local college, Smith realized that he could make a decent amount of money at doing, which led to even more money when he filmed and released this on An Evening with Kevin Smith. So much money apparently that it was worth making a second volume in the simple visits to adoring fans with random questions that lead to an assortment of great stories and humor.

Kevin Smith would be hilarious in front of any audience if you gave him a microphone and any random topic, but making the settings in foreign land just gives him reserve ammo. In Toronto he plays into the Canadian stereotypes and brings up donuts, beer and hockey more than once, while in England he uses the curse words most popular and even works a euro joke in as well. His ability to adapt to his surroundings is what makes him entertaining in the Q&A settings. He is so successful during these evenings that his long breaks between films begin to make sense. Audiences and critics haven’t always been kind to his regurgitation of characters and obscene dialogue obsessed scripts, but his fans treat him like a God and would be so happy to hear the same obscenity filled dialogue coming out his mouth that they will sit through an entire evening of it even without the guise of plot, story or character.

Although Smith has fun with the cultures he is visiting, he makes more jokes at the expense of America and Americans, which works out well for everyone. Any Americans who are fans of Smith have learned to laugh at themselves and the British and Canadians need to excuse to laugh at the jokes as well. Somehow even when Smith is offensive his nature is sweet and his words are sincere. He is brutally honest, especially when concerning his sex life, and even mentions that his wife was shocked by some of the things he shared on the first DVD. Some might assume that Smith is like the characters in Clerks or Mallrats, but he has just as much Jersey Girl in him as well.

Jason Mewes is brought out onto stage each evening and questions are opened up to him but there isn’t a lot for him to do. The questions are mostly for Smith and Mewes just uses the opportunity to try and get laid each evening. Both times he throws subtle hints and Smith does his best to play the part as wing man to get his star women that he apparently can’t get without the director. There are also moments where Mewes seems distracted and not paying attention but always reaches for water. This may or may not mean that he is high, but I certainly wouldn’t doubt it. Smith also brings along his wife in Toronto and his mother in England, which is awkward and priceless.

This two-disc DVD has great packaging with a number of staged photos of Smith. The menus are equally elaborate, but through all of the menus there is really only one special feature per disc. In Canada Kevin and Jason go out on the streets to find out what Canadian food is in a Limo Ride Featurette, and in London Jason tries his vulgar pick-up lines on British women, and surprisingly he is able to woo many of them over, if only for his celebrity.