Nacho Libre

February 15, 2007

Rated: PG Runtime: 90 min Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Nacho Libre stars Jack Black and is written and directed by Jared Hess, the man who brought us Napolean Dynamite. With that kind of pedigree, we went in figuring this was going to be one warped movie. We were right!

Nacho Libre Jack stars as Ignacio, a monk at an orphanage who fantasizes about being a luchadore. Lucha Libre is what the Mexicans call wrestling. It’s taken quite seriously and often has an almost religious following. Anyhow, Jack starts wrestling and finds he can make money for the orphanage by doing so, but wrestling is viewed as a sin by the church elders, so he has to wear a mask and wrestle under the guise of “Nacho”.

There are some genuinely funny scenes. And it’s safe to say that Jack Black has no shame and will do anything if he thinks it’ll get a laugh. The wrestling scenes are choreographed well enough to be funny in a Three Stooges kinda way but also look real enough to make you go “ouch!”. Such as when you see something like a midget dressed like an escapee from Dr. Moreau alternating elbows from the head to the gonads.

So what’s the bad part? Well, even at only 90 minutes this felt a bit long. This is a movie that would’ve made a great skit on a comedy show, but the joke has run it’s course fairly early into the movie. The humor wont take with everyone. If you’ve never watched wrestling and you didn’t enjoy the quirky facial expressions and stuff in Napolean Dynamite, you may hate Nacho Libre. The guy one row behind us certainly hated it. However, we thought it was exactly what it tries to be. We give it 3 stars. If the trailer makes you laugh, go see it. Otherwise hold out for DVD.

Posted by Billy Bob | Filed Under 3 Stars, Comedy, DVD, Hector Jimenez, Jack Black, Moises Anas, PG, Richard Montoya, Troy Gentile