Nacho Libre

Rating PG Formats DVD Genre comedy Starring Jack Black, Ana de la Reguera, Héctor Jiménez, Darius Rose, Moises Arias Directed by Jared Hess Publisher Paramount Home Video External Links Official Nacho Libre Website

If you like the style and humor of Napoleon Dynamite, and if you are not completely over Jack Black's shtick, then there is much to enjoy in Nacho Libre. It's a story of an oddball outsider, who dreams of glory in the Wrestling Ring, and much to everyone's surprise, including his own, he comes out a winner in the end, but only after he learns that the real glory comes in fighting for something bigger than a just a title. That which fills up 92 minutes of screen time is Jack Black as Nacho hamming it up with his intense brand of physical comedy and eyebrow movement.

Hmm, that opening paragraph makes it sound as though I didn't like Nacho Libre. Au contraire, I enjoyed it quite a bit. I actually watched it twice before writing this. It's is a bit of magical realism blended into a loser comedy that one can't help but to enjoy, and laugh, and love…well, maybe not love, but you can't help but cheer for the likable anti-hero. It's hard to not go into this film with expectations to compare this film to Jared Hess' debut film, Napoleon Dynamite, which seemed to instill intense love or total apathy in the hearts of some. The humor oscillates between broad, very broad, and subtle. This isn't a Will Ferrell or Owen Wilson slickly-produced comedy, to which I say thank god.

The film begins with a clever montage of young Ignatio, who dreams of growing up to be a pro-wrestler he has called Nacho. Soon, we find out that poor Ignatio is an orphan in a monastery, and in Mexico, that means he will be a monk, and being a monk means that wrestling is wrong. Enter Encarnacion, a more than angelic faced nun, and Ignatio/Nacho begins a-courting, only to be degraded time and time again in front of her. This need to prove his strength to her leads him to fulfilling his childhood dream of Nacho.

Ignatio enlists the help of Esqueleto, the "skeleton," a painfully skinny street-urchin-cum-small-time-mugger that beats him up over chips. As Nacho and the Skeleton enter the Luchador tournament, they become not victors, but rather the comic relief of a world filled with freaks. The wrestling sequences offer much of the physical comedy of Nacho Libre, and the choreography obviously makes fun of the stylized choreography of "real" wrestling world.

However, every story needs an arc, and in the case of Nacho Libre, Nacho learns that fighting for others is more wonderful than for personal glory and fame. In the case of Nacho, he fights for the monastery's brood of orphans he cooks for every day. Wrestling allows Nacho to provide a slightly better life for the collection of slack-jawed kids that want salad rather than beans. Due to his selflessness, Nacho ends up coming out on top, and even defeating the greatest wrestler "in this city, possibly the world" Ramses, a hulk of a man who would never in a million years lose to a pudge-ball like Nacho, but this is a fantasy

Hess' style is heavy in this film. The location of Oaxaca is the cinematic equivalent of Hess' native Utah, and his style incorporates the large spaces of those areas. His favorite lens is the wide angle, and the sky above is an important component of his mise en scene. He likes to set up his shots in a symmetrical fashion, even when it is a chaotic situation. This careful blocking is reminiscent of Wes Anderson, as well as Hess' use of slow motion throughout the film. All in all, Nacho Libre, though a more a slapstick comedy rather than a art-house drama, is a beautifully shot film, with rich saturated colors and carefully planned compositions. You won't find one hand-held camera shot in this movie, as that would be too improvisational.

The improv-style in Nacho Libre comes from Black's performance. Even though his act may be as planned as dolly shots, Black has a playful way about him that lends itself to Nacho. Black's charm is in the vein of John Belushi and Chris Farley, a fat guy that isn't afraid to look like an absolute fool for the amusement of the audience. And yes, quite of bit of the laughs come from Nacho's costumes, be it the way-too-small sweats he dons for his training montage to the "stretchy pants" required of wrestlers.

Oh, yeah, and Jack Black sings in Nacho Libre. One of the two guys behind Tenacious D, Black is almost required to sing in his films now, after the success of School of Rock. It's funny, but only if, like I wrote earlier, you are not sick of Black's over-emphatic style of mock-rock.

Black's supporting cast include Hector Jimenez as the Skeleton, a man blessed with a huge, over-toothed grin and gangly arms and legs that make him perfect as the exact wrong person for wrestling. Hess uses a plethora of little kids with blank faces, as well as the strangest bunch of odd-balls as wrestlers and fans. The only attractive person is the Nun, played by Ana de la Reguera, a impossibly beautiful Mexican TV and film star. Hess obviously likes to cast interesting looking actors and non-actors rather than the usual silicon-enhanced Hollywood versions.

The DVD includes some featurettes and short docs of the making of and Jack Black and how damn funny he is, as well as how funny Hess is (they think so highly of themselves that they do a commentary over "dinner"). Jack Black sings more, there are deleted scenes, and a photo gallery.

All in all, Nacho Libre is a escapist, silly comedy meant to entertain, with a moral-esque aftertaste. It is obviously a vehicle for Jack Black, but has enough substance and style as to not come across as overly-commercial. There are some really funny sequences, such as Nacho's banishment to "the Wilderness", as well as some great fighting choreography that pokes fun at itself. Will it go down as a comedy legend? Probably not, but for a light laugh, you could do so much worse than to bring Nacho home.