Review of Gentlemen Broncos (2009) by Jason S — 05 Mar 2010

This is one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time, but it's only for sci-fi geeks and those who crave discomfort. No really, don't watch this movie. However, if you loved Napoleon Dynamite and Chuck and Buck and pretty much any other discomforting indie comedy, then you might thrill to the derring-do of Benjamin Purvis as he goes up against the all-powerful established Chevalier and the Publicity Machine to reclaim his original story of Bronco and the Battle Stags and his possible love-interest Vanaya as they go searching for his stolen gonad in the quest to defeat the evil Lord Daysius.

Um. There's not a lot else to say except it's very funny. Okay, it also, seems to me, catches the essence of sci-fi culture from the early 70s. I mean, his Mom is a hippy living in a geodesic dome! And all that sci-fi from the 70s was indeed all about furtive adolescent sexplosiveness.

Great to see Mike White, and of course, Sam Rockwell. He seems to be spoofing his character in Moon, and it all fits, since both Moon and Gentlemen Broncos were not listed among this years Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards, which doesn't make sense, since both of them are better than most of the other movies that were listed.

After all, both used archaic forms of cinematic special effects (ie., models and miniatures) in bold new ways without resorting to spending a billion dollars to come up with something Aldous Huxley warned us about (anyone remember "feelies"?) in Brave New World.

Go there at your peril! Anyway, Gentlemen Broncos has the best soundtrack ever. I mean how can you argue a movie about sci-fi geeks that opens with the song In The Year 2525 and ends with Carry On My Wayward Son? That's right, you can't.

You go with it. This is for all of us who aren't perfect and don't want to be.