Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
I’m not much for NAPOLEON DYNAMITE.
I know it was a huge cult hit, and I know it made people crazy, and I know that there are fans who have memorized every word of it. And that’s cool. It just wasn’t a film that I loved. In fact, I’m not entirely sure I even liked it. There are moments in the film that got some great unexpected laughs from me, but as a whole, I thought it was a bit undercooked. More than anything, I was interested to see what Jared Hess and Jon Heder were both capable of away from NAPOLEON.
Heder’s had a few shots now, and my interest in him ended as soon as I saw him in JUST LIKE HEAVEN, where I thought he phoned in a really weak variation on his work in NAPOLEON. He’s a one-trick pony, only it’s more like a half a trick, since I think a lot of his performance in that film was simply innate to who Jon Heder is. I don’t think we’re going to see a broad range of work from him in the future, and I’d be surprised if he shows up in many more high-profile films at all.
Jared Hess, on the other hand? He’s the real deal, and NACHO LIBRE is the proof.
At first glance, NACHO LIBRE looks like a one-joke affair. A monk wants to be a luchador. And, to be fair, it sort of is a one-joke affair. But now that he’s made a couple of films, I’m starting to get a handle on Hess as a filmmaker, and I like his approach. Basically, he doesn’t seem interested in plot-driven comedy at all. The plot of NACHO LIBRE is wafer-thin, and fairly unimportant, just as the plot of NAPOLEON DYNAMITE seemed to be totally inconsequential. What Hess does is create a fascinating and unique central character, then build a world around them. Just as everything in NAPOLEON seems to be stylized around this incredibly awkward string bean of a kid, like his world view somehow externalized, everything in NACHO LIBRE seems to be filtered through the supercharged perceptions of Ignacio, played by the comedy warhorse that is Jack Black.
Now, having said that, I think the film’s going to totally miss the audience that Paramount is selling it to. This is not a cool hipster comedy, despite the Mike White screenplay credit and despite Hess and Black. This is a kid’s film, pure and simple. Nickelodeon’s logo is on the front of this for a reason. More than anything, this reminds me of the sensibility that is so omnipresent in their programming like SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS and the early John Kricfalusi run of REN & STIMPY. This is the sort of movie you can take kids of eight or nine to see, and they’re going to spend the next two weeks doing a bad Mexican accent and practicing crazy wrestling dives off the couch, giggling like loonies the whole time. It’s an innately sweet film, but every time it starts to tip over into too sweet, it reminds you of just how silly it is, and then it reminds you that it really does mean the sweet, but it also means the silly, and you spend the whole film sort of see-sawing back and forth between totally different types of smiles.
Three actors lend just the right support to Black here. Ana de la Reguera is adorable as Sister Encarnacion, and when Nacho sings his love song about her, you completely understand what inspired it. She’s a good nun, and there’s never any danger of her doing anything to sully her vows, but her smile gives Nacho just enough hope that he continues to woo her. Hector Jimenez does really funny work as Esqueleto, who first meets Nacho when they wrestle in an alley over a bag of “orphan’s chips.” He becomes Nacho’s tag team partner and best friend, and his fondness for corn is one of those little details that provokes repeated smiles before paying off in one seriously crazy sight gag. Finally, there’s Chancho, played by chubby little Darius Rose, the main object of Nacho’s affection at the orphanage. Chancho knows Nacho’s secret, and it gives him strength to watch Nacho fight, even when Nacho loses. He understands what it is that makes Nacho get in the ring, and in turn, that makes Nacho stronger.
I’m not sure what piece of music opens the film, but it’s a recurring theme throughout the movie, and it’s one of the happiest songs I’ve heard in a long time. Basically, if you watch that opening scene with young Nacho putting together his first luchador outfit and you hate what you’re seeing, get up, walk out of the theater, and don’t look back.
But if you find yourself smiling (and not laughing, mind you, since this film frequently goes for the smile instead of the belly laugh) and you can’t shake that song as the rest of the movie starts to play, then sit back and enjoy. NACHO LIBRE is a blissful little treat, and I found myself legitimately moved by the ending, even knowing full well how it would play out.
I’ll have more DVD reviews for you later today, and then next week, we’ll see some of those long-promised AICN 10th anniversary articles start to appear as we gear up for the big day, which is less than three weeks away now. Until then...
"Moriarty" out.
