It's 'Nacho' average wrestling flick
With Nacho Libre, Jack Black finally claims the crown – OK, maybe the whoopee cushion – of the late, great John Belushi.
Like Belushi, Black’s on the chunky side, and his humor tends toward the gross-out, but beneath that is a bad-boy charm that wins your heart despite it all.
Like Belushi, too, he has a musical flair, but unlike the Blues Brother, he’s capable enough to draw laughs by singing terribly, and doing it very well.
Black’s shown off his talents before, in High Fidelity (as the rock snob/music store clerk who insults every client’s tastes), in Shallow Hal and in School of Rock. He may have found his perfect match, though in Jared Hess, director of the 2004 sleeper hit Napoleon Dynamite.
Their collaboration, Nacho Libre, is far from perfect, but there are more than enough good bits to make it worthwhile, both for pro wrestling fans and aficionados of the Cartoon Network’s “Adult Swim” block.
If you haven’t seen Napoleon Dynamite, it’s hard to describe Hess’s style: edgy, arch, mannered in a way that recalls Wes Anderson, creator of The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic.
Unlike Anderson, however, Hess can actually convey Heart with a capital H.
At least some of the time, he pulls off the great Brechtian trick of laughing at his characters – and reminding you all the time that his tale is thoroughly artificial – while making you ache for them.
Black plays Ignacio, a Mexican orphan who grew up a fanatic for Lucha Libre, Mexico’s inimitable, home-grown brand of professional wrestling. (A whole tag team of real-life luchadores shows up in the production, including Cesar Gonzalez, alias “Silver King.”)
Instead, fate sent Ignacio into the orphanage kitchen, where he has to feed a horde of orphans on a frayed shoestring of a budget.
One can only stretch beans and crumbly black-market nachos so far, though.
When Ignacio sees a poster offering 200 pesos for amateur luchadores, he sees his chance to don the mask and stretchy pants of a warrior.
He also wants to impress the pretty new teaching sister (Mexican actress Ana de la Requera). There’s a problem here, of course, since he and she are both bound by vows of chastity, but Nacho Libre slips around it, a little uncomfortably, by treating amores with the sort of faux innocence that Paul
Reubens used to employ on Pee-wee’s Playhouse. (Ignacio invites Sister up
to his room for ... a nice snack of toast.)
Frankly, the results are an acquired taste. Hess and Black rely too much on
body gas and near-deformity as a source of gags. Some Catholics won’t like
the playing with religious themes. (Ignacio’s father was a friar while his
mother was a Lutheran missionary from Scandinavia: “They tried to convert
each other – and fell in love.”) And, Black uses a version of Spanglish
that hasn’t been so mangled since the heyday of Bill Dana. Plus, a lot of
the gags fall flat, or are so stale they’re past their expiration date.
(Yes, Ignacio tries to administer Last Rites to an old gent who isn’t dead
yet.)
On the other hand, enough gags do work to save the production, at least for
me. Professional wrestling of any sort is above parody, but most of the
ringside action is hilarious. (When’s the last time anybody in the WWF gave
another fighter an Atomic Wedgie?)
Black also croons a couple of fractured mariachi ballads.
The big discovery of Nacho Libre is Hector Jimenez as Ignacio’s emaciated
tag-team partner. He can match Black for physical slapstick and his lispy
delivery recalls Hank Azaria in The Birdcage. If Black has any sense, he’ll
team up with this beanpole again.
Nacho Libre, rated “PG,” contains lots of slapstick, a fair amount of
flatulence and some rather heavy double entendres, although the movie runs
a full 100 minutes without a single kiss.
Ben Steelman: 343-2208
ben.steelman@starnewsonline.com.