Nacho Libre (2006)

 

Demasiado Queso Mata el Nacho

(Too Much Cheese Kills the Nacho)

 

 

“If you don’t turn that off, I’m gonna leave you.” I remember someone who I once thought loved me saying those words, almost verbatim, about 45 minutes into watching Napoleon Dynamite on HBO.  “ND” was one of those movies that really got talked about a lot, and it seemed like folks either really loved it or really loathed it.  Because of the situation described in my opening words, I can’t give a complete recap of Nacho Libre director Jared Hess’s first film other than to say those 45 minutes I caught definitely weren’t… “dynamite”, but they were (to me at least) interesting and quirky.  Nacho Libre looked as if it would equally different.  It is.  Unfortunately, it’s also so dreadfully cheesy it could make a cheeseburger wince.

 

Jack Black (King Kong, numerous comedies) is Nacho, a lowly cook at a lowly Mexican monastery.  Nacho loves the young orphans who live at the monastery, but he is frustrated with the ho-hum priestly life and aspires for something more.  He wants to be a star, a “luchador” (wrestler).  But the monastery and beautiful nun, Sister Encarnacion (Ana de la Reguera), whom Nacho is in love with, absolutely forbid the art of fighting. Nacho goes after his dream secretly anyway, with the help of grimy, pintsized sidekick Esqueleto (Hector Jimenez), who arguably is as nasty and grotesque as Black’s “Nacho Libre.”  Slapstick wresting, eye-rolling stupidity, and more cheese and shots of Jack Black’s barrel chest than any masochist could ever hope to see ensue.

 

I like Jack Black, and I liked the idea of him playing this part.  “Nacho Libre: monk by day—wrestler extraordinaire by night” really seemed like something Black could make funny and make work.  But a good idea if not executed well I guess is a lot like a good intention, it can pave the road to hell, and that sure happens here.  The movie starts off likeable enough, but it grows old real fast.  And then it just gets worse and worse and worse, till by the end you about wish you could get in the ring and knockout Nacho Libre yourself just to put him and you out of your shared misery.

 

Nacho Libre is actually a lot like the portion of Napoleon Dynamite I saw.  It’s unabashedly stupid, it’s not laugh-out-loud funny, and it’s extremely cheesy.  The difference is, Napoleon Dynamite was at least somewhat real.  It was identifiable.  Nacho is more likeable than Napoleon, but much less believable.  You didn’t really like Napoleon, but you cared about him because you could sympathize with him.  But Nacho Libre the character and the movie you just can’t feel; you can’t connect with.  Black is painfully over-the-top and the movie is all cheesy, mercilessly stupid style, and no substance.  Nothing is developed, everything is thinner than a slice of cheese, and the only points emphasized are things that don’t need to be.  And I’m all for seeing real people on the movie screen who actually have some fat and imperfections and aren’t all Hollywood “so-perfectly-pretty-that-they’re-ugly.”  Jack Black and many of his cohorts here certainly aren’t specimens of physical flawlessness, that’s for sure.  But there’s a difference between being non-Hollywood and being blatantly sick and overtly grotesque to the point of near unwatchability, and Nacho Libre crosses the “yuck line.”  It’s an utter campfest that erects into a giant cheese pile so high and thick if you were Godzilla you still couldn’t look up above it or blast your way through it.

 

In other words, unless you’re obsessed with Jack Black or know all the dialogue of Napoleon Dynamite by heart, avoid Nacho Libre.  And as for the “film nazi” I spoke of in my introduction, I’m thinking about sending them a copy of Nacho Libre when it comes out on DVD.  Vengeance is stirring.  Ha, they thought Napoleon Dynamite was bad; Nacho Libre will make their mozzarella melt.

 

- Movie Review By G. Roger Priddy (6-17-06)