Do we like them?

Do we like Kevin Smith?

Our score: 7 out of 10. No harmful words or company found and some real good on the record, but the search was thinner than we'd like and Chasing Amy is still argued over.

Smith is the bloke who turned a convenience-store grudge into Clerks and a whole shared universe, with Jay and Silent Bob as the mascots. His 1999 film Dogma came straight out of his Catholic upbringing and his relationship with his father, by his own account, and it has been a lightning rod ever since.

The best Smith saga is the fight to get Dogma back. Harvey Weinstein personally held the film, and Smith says he offered $250,000, then $500,000, then $1 million with help from Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, only to hit what he called an “absolute stonewall situation.” That's a long way from the cosy picture of a director and his studio.

When the allegations against Weinstein broke in 2017, Smith didn't dodge. He said Weinstein had funded the first 14 years of his career, adding “It makes me feel ashamed.” Days later he pledged to give the future residuals from his Weinstein-produced films to Women in Film, plus a monthly donation. That's a real act, not just a sorry.

The harm check comes up clean on his own words. We found no campaigning against LGBTQ+ or trans people, no anti-vax or climate-denial material, and no Trump-era grievance spiral from him. The live argument is Chasing Amy, which some queer viewers find clumsy while a trans filmmaker credits it with helping him as a teenager. Smith was an eager participant in that filmmaker's documentary about it, which is the opposite of digging in. We couldn't find much on his politics, so call this a pass on a thin file.

The recent news is more movies. He says he's writing a Dogma sequel, partly because “sometimes you just got to do stuff because it's fun.” A Jay and Silent Bob film called Store Wars was planned to shoot in 2026, though we couldn't confirm it has started.

So: would we support him? Yes. He's a nerd who built a career on being open about himself, he cleaned up his Weinstein ties in public, and nothing nasty has turned up. The mark against him is a creative one, not a moral one: Chasing Amy hasn't aged perfectly. Not a perfect ten, but a very easy yes.