Review of Gentlemen Broncos (2009) by Aart V — 21 Apr 2010

The Hess MO has always been Wes Anderson without the privileged New Yorker sneering, and "Gentlemen Broncos" remains the sort of feature that inspires warmth and affection even through its patchier stretches; possibly the only sci-fi opus shot in and around Utah, its homemade comic sensibility is evident in the care and attention paid to such ephemera as the hero's packed lunches (popcorn balls, red energy drink, green cookie thing) or Chevalier's perfectly kitsch cover art (with its "mammary cannons" pouring down "laser rain").

It's the kind of modest offering that can pay as much attention to tiny sound effects - the squeaks of a low-grade camera tripod, say, or several blissfully timed offscreen coughs - as it does to production and costume design.

.. The soundtrack, too, is typically varied: it's doubtful you'll have heard The Scorpions or Cher in this particular vein, and Zager and Evans' "(In the Year) 2525" is a worthy rescue from the one-hit wonders bin.

If the Hesses retain a comic outlook to cherish, the film itself is nonetheless wildly uneven, as though its creators weren't sure which direction to pursue after one off-the-radar sensation and one summer-season divebomb.

Elements of grossout - severed testicles, burping aliens, vomiting snakes - suggest a cruder sensibility, while the rein this director kept on even Jack Black in "Nacho Libre" appears to have slackened: Napoleon Dynamite and chums were always more than just freaks, but Jimenez's supporting amigo here is asked to curl his lips around a grotesque role.

Even Clement's supremely pompous Chevalier - the funniest thing in the movie, humorlessly declaiming on "the power of the suffix" - is liable to remind UK viewers of TV's Garth Marenghi (albeit - if we're going to get nerdy about it, which a film like this does rather encourage - played out in the mellifluous tones of Matt Berry rather than Matt Holness).

When it's on - as in a pointed Q&A session the rival authors attend, or in those fantasy scenes that delineate the differences between the Chevalier and Purvis visions - "Gentlemen Broncos" is every bit as sharp, fond and funny as "Napoleon Dynamite"; when it's not, it has the rather airless air of a strained bid for cultdom.