Review of Gentlemen Broncos (2009) by Gino P — 05 Jun 2011

Imitation is the sincerest form a flattery. It is apparent that the Hess siblings desiderated to fancy their own works with their newest film Gentlemen Broncos. To qualify, Gentlemen Broncos utilizes the same exact formula of a societal misfit used in both Nacho Libre and Napoleon Dynamite. While those two comedic movies were both equally unique and humorous, Broncos feels stale, farcical, and ultimately, a waste of my time.

Gentlemen Broncos is a story of Benjamin(Michael Angarano), a home-schooled misfit, who inspires to become a prominent science fiction writer. Benjamin attends a writing workshop headed by Chevalier (Jemaine Clement), his paragon of an author, who steals his story leaving the characters in tangles of plagiarism and adaptation rights.

As a tenacious fan of Hess's freshman work, Napoleon Dynamite, I ignored the harsh reviews of Broncos, thinking that the reviewers did not appreciate the dry humor that the Hess brothers have popularized. To my dismay, everything negative said about the film was absolutely correct. From the introduction to Benjamin's bizarre acquaintances, everything seemed as if it was horrible replica of Napoleon Dynamite. Contrarily, Gentleman Broncos used Napoleon's offbeat aspects in all of the wrong ways. The fantasy sequences, Benjamin's onscreen stories, were so far-out and grotesque, I found myself skipping these images of "go-nads" and "cyclops." Another adverse aspect was that the humor throughout the movie was so forced that it took away all of the genius comedic elements that Nacho Libre and Dynamite used brilliantly. Finally there were so many unnecessary moments of puking and physical humor that it seemed that the majority of the movie was crafted by Hess's immature inner-child. The only redeeming aspect of the movie was Jemaine's Clement's performance. He successfully strays away from his character in HBO's Flight Of The Conchords, and makes a ridiculously humorous character that deserves a film with more quality.

Overall, Gentlemen Broncos created so much disappointment that I'll probably never give Hess another chance. The Napoleon formula has lost all of its brilliance, and persistently using it exposes an untalented director with no more originality.