Two bumbling store clerks inadvertently erase the footage from all of the tapes in their video rental store. In order to keep the business running, they re-shoot every film in the store with their own camera, with a budget of zero dollars.
In Passaic, NJ, Elroy Fletcher runs a video store in a condemned building he claims was the birthplace of Fats Waller. Fletcher goes on a Waller centennial trip, leaving his foster son Mike in charge of the store. Mike's peculiar friend Jerry tries to sabotage a power station and nearly electrocutes himself, getting magnetized in the process. He inadvertently erases every tape in the store. Mike and Jerry hatch an plan to hide the disaster by making a homemade "Ghostbusters" to rent to a woman whom Fletcher will be phoning to check on them. Soon, with help, their homemade versions of films develop a cult following. Will this new business save the store and the building? What about Fats?—<[email protected]>
A small VHS only video store faces foreclosure in a poor community. While watching the store for the owner, a blundering employee's friend accidentally erases all of the tapes. In order to keep their blunder from becoming apparent, the duo of Mike and Jerry begin remaking the films themselves using homemade special effects and outdated filming techniques.—RSTX
In Passaic, New Jersey, Mr. Fletcher owns an old VHS Be Kind Rewind Video Store in a condemned building, where he works with his stepson Mike. Mr. Fletcher is proud of his building and claims that Thomas Wright "Fats" Waller was born there. However, the City Hall wants to relocate the store and demolish the building. Mr. Fletcher needs to travel and advises Mike to keep his dysfunctional friend Jerry out of the store. But Jerry develops a conspiracy theory against the machines and decides to sabotage the power plant. Jerry inadvertently has an accident and gets magnetized. When he visits Mike in the video store, he accidentally erases all the tapes. Meanwhile, Mr. Fletcher's friend Miss Falewicz comes to the video store to check over and rent "Ghostbusters". Mike and Jerry decide to hide the accident and remake the film.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
In 2003 Passaic, New Jersey, the declining "Be Kind Rewind" VHS rental store owned by Mr. Elroy Fletcher (Danny Glover) is due to be demolished to make way for high-end development unless he can find the money to renovate his building, despite his claims that jazz pianist Fats Waller was born in that building. His building is condemned as a slum and the officials give him 60 days to upgrade the building to the required standards or they will demolish it.
Mr. Fletcher leaves on a trip for several days joining some friends to memorialize Waller, as well as visiting a DVD rental store to learn efficient and modernized ways of running a video rental store, leaving his only employee, Mike (Mos Def), to tend to the store. Before leaving Mr. Fletcher cautions Mike to keep his paranoid and klutzy conspiracy theorist friend, Jerry (Jack Black), away from the store. However, Mike reads it in reverse on the steamed-up train window and does not understand.
After attempting to sabotage a nearby electrical substation, believing its energy to be melting his brain, Jerry receives an electrical shock which leaves him magnetized, and when he enters the store the next day, he inadvertently erases all the VHS tapes in the store (as well as making the TV not work correctly, whenever he walks past it).Mr Fletcher phones an acquaintance Miss Falewicz (Mia Farrow) asking her to return the rented tape of Driving Miss Daisy. He asks her to keep an eye on his shop.
Mike quickly discovers the disaster, and is further pressed when Miss Falewicz, Mr. Fletcher's friend, wants to rent Ghostbusters. To prevent her from reporting a problem to Mr. Fletcher, Mike comes up with an idea: as Miss Falewicz has never seen the movie, he proposes to recreate the film using himself and Jerry as the actors and cheap special effects hoping to fool her. They film it in the local library. They complete the movie just in time when another customer asks for Rush Hour 2. Mike and Jerry repeat their filming, enlisting the help of Alma (Melonie Diaz), a local woman, for some of the parts.
Word of mouth spreads through Miss Falewicz's nephew of the inadvertently hilarious results of Mike and Jerry's filming, and soon the store is seeing more requests for such movies. Mike, Jerry, and Alma quickly pass off the movies as being "Sweded", insisting the films came from Sweden and thus able to demand long wait times and higher costs for the rental ($20 instead of $1). Soon, to meet demand, Mike and Jerry enlist the locals to help out in making the movies, using them as starring roles in their films.
When Mr. Fletcher returns, intent on converting the store to a DVD rental outlet (The city council gives him 6 weeks to carry out repairs worth $60,000 or his store will be demolished), he quickly recognizes that they are making more money from the Sweded films than from normal rentals and joins in with the process. Alma suggests reducing the length of the movies so that they can shoot many more and make more money as well.However, the success is put to a halt when two court bailiffs arrive, insisting the Sweded films are copyright violations, and seize the tapes and the store's assets, crushing the tapes with a steamroller. Without any money to renovate the building, Mr. Fletcher gives up hope, and is forced to reveal to Mike that he made up the connection of Fats Waller to their building. Mr. Fletcher is given a week to evacuate the building before it will be razed.
Jerry, with the help of the local townspeople, convinces Mr. Fletcher and Mike to give one last hurrah and put together a documentary dedicated to the fake life of Fats Waller, and the two quickly warm up to the idea. They create Fats Waller Was Born Here.On the day the building is scheduled for demolition, Mr. Fletcher invites all the locals to watch the final film. In his eagerness to start the show due to the presence of the demolition crew waiting to start the job, Jerry accidentally breaks the store's only television, but a nearby DVD store owner loans them his video projector, allowing them to show the movie on a white cloth placed in the store's window. As their film ends, Mr. Fletcher, Mike and Jerry exit the store to find a crowd has gathered in the street to watch the film through the window, including the city official and wrecking crew, and they are given a rousing applause by the gathered crowd.The city council head has a change of heart and allows the store to be as it is. The demolition is called off.
The credits roll with more of the mockumentary and Fats Waller singing "Your Feet's Too Big".
