I have always enjoyed Kevin Smith's films, though this statement is conditional on understanding that I missed out on almost everything he made after Clerks 2, so I may or may not change my mind at some point. However, that shouldn't alter the fact that I will always hold some of his earlier exploits in very high regard.

Nevertheless, something always felt odd to me about the way Kevin Smith made his movies. On some level Clerks, Mall Rats or Dogma had a very noticeable atmosphere of being either fake, artificial or simply amateurish. And for a long time I have attributed this phenomenon to the idea that Smith always cast his friends and family, which kept his filmmaking cheap and ever so slightly rogue. I just thought none of these people were good actors. But I know for a fact Ben Affleck and Matt Damon have always had a lot of potential, so why was it that they always come across as slightly off when Kevin Smith is behind the camera?

Now I think I have an answer, or maybe even the answer, which came to me during the 'chasing Amy' monologue when Kevin Smith's character Silent Bob opens hos mouth and delivers a fantastic speech that defines the entire story and serves as a beautiful inflection point for Ben Affleck's character arc: Kevin Smith is simply a bad director. Not a bad filmmaker; a bad director. He can write great stories, point the camera in interesting directions and splice the footage together in a meaningful way, but he is incapable of telling his actors what he wants. And without directions and character tips even the greatest acting talent can come across as wooden. He knows what he wants, as exemplified by the lines he delivers himself, but just cannot convey his vision to actors. He is a reverse Steven Soderbergh.

Fortunately, Chasing Amy is a good enough story to carry this otherwise annoying inadequacy and survives almost purely on the combined ingenuity of its narrative and an emotional punch it packs within.

But my point still stands. With Smith behind the camera even Robert De Niro would look like an athlete-turned-actor.