Jared Hess, the director of “Napoleon Dynamite”, “Nacho Libre”, and the soon to be in theaters, “Gentlemen Broncos” is clearly one of us. Complete with horn-rim glasses, nervous tics, a penchant for poopie jokes and hilariously dry wit, I think Jared Hess could easily be called a geeks director. His movies are filled with characters like us, awkward, clumsy, and full of unwarranted confidence. So it shouldn’t be surprising that I jumped at the chance to go to an advanced screening of the film last night.
Living in Salt Lake City, where the production of the film took place, I knew a few things about the movie to begin with; and it seemed like I was in for one helluva ride. The opening credits came on, and in classic Hess fashion we were treated to various close-ups of kitschy sci-fi book covers with the actors and key crew members names as their titles. “So far, so good” I thought. Sadly, this is where the “good” ended, and for the rest of the movie (what seriously seemed like 3 hours or more) I was forced to sit through what felt like a high school students take on a Jared Hess movie.
This movie was absolutely terrible! From the trailer, one would guess that “Gentlemen Broncos” is a film about a boy who gets his story stolen by reputable sci-fi (pardon me, syfy) writer, and then seeks revenge on his former literary idol. And although that story is indeed told, Jared Hess has filled his movie with so many “oddball characters” and “hilarious” vignettes that I couldn’t help but wonder why he felt that making us watch the wacky hometown filmmaker Lonnie Donaho (clearly based on TERRIBLE local fimmaker Steven Groo), the go-nowhere love story between the main character and “some girl”, or the Mom’s wacky lingerie designs were more important than the main story.
I understand (and appreciate) that Jared Hess likes his wacky characters, but each character took so long for him to introduce and set up in the world of Gentlemen Broncos that he failed to make time in the movie to actually let the viewer care about any of them. Sigh…I really am trying to write a professional review of this thing, but it is growing more and more difficult as this post goes on to not just scream “This movie was a total wreck of a film that I can’t believe didn’t go straight to DVD!” Seriously, when your movie is “about” a kid and his (actually entertaining) short story “Yeast Lords” getting stolen by another writer, and you only devote a small portion of the film to scenes that actually develop your story…the viewer is only left to wonder “WTF”?!
Gentlemen Broncos is a film that is too boring to invest any more time thinking about, after exiting the theater I couldn’t help but feel completely frustrated and confused by what I had just seen. “How did he make such a terrible mess?” The concept was intriguing and the promise of seeing Sam Rockwell as a science fiction hero in the sci-fi sequences of the film was exciting, but this movie fails to deliver on every conceivable level. The story went nowhere, the characters did nothing to drive the plot forward, and worst of all, I was bored to to death the entire time. Not once did I feel entertained or amused during the course of the film. I am definitely a fan of Jared Hess’ first two films and even went so far as to buy “Napoleon Dynamite” on DVD (my name is BUDGETron for a reason), but even I was left wondering who greenlit this mess of a movie.
Don’t go see Gentlemen Bronco’s. Not even on DVD.