Gentlemen Broncos

Gentlemen Broncos is the new movie from Jared and Jerusha Hess (Napoleon Dynamite, Nacho Libre). It's kind of like Napoleon Dynamite with a plot. A quiet lonely kid lives with his mom in a geodesic dome, writes a sci-fi story about a hairy, monotestacled space warrior who rides missile-firing deer in battle against cyclopes, and enters it in a contest. Celebrity sci-fi writer ( Jemaine Clement of The Flight of the Conchords and Eagle Vs. Shark) plagiarizes it while the boy's strange friends adapt it into a homemade movie. Sam Rockwell plays Bronco/Brutus, the space warrior who is fighting to get galactic, life-sustaining yeast back, in the sci-fi portions of the movie.

There is a good amount of Wes Anderson type eccentricities and details. The plagiarist, celebrity author character's last name is Chevalier (as in Hotel Chevalier, the prelude short to Anderson's Darjeeling Limited), the shot of him reading in bed is strikingly similar to a shot of Jason Schwartzman in Hotel Chevalier, and the opening credit sequence, a series of straight down shots of sci-fi book covers, recalls the opening credits of The Royal Tenenbaums. For every Anderson-inflected piece of this movie, though, there are at least three to five that are pure Hess. Good ugly clothes and accessories, amusingly peculiar mannerisms, a big snake taking a giant dump, odd looking extras, and almost-swears in place of any genuinely foul language.

I give it a 93%. There is a bunch of explosions and a revolver versus blowgun fight and hilarious weirdness, and even a little Black Sabbath.


I went to the screening at the Arclight. My mom brought shepherd's pie into the theater, and ate it with a giant spoon, passing it to my dad and brother to share. Jemaine Clement came out in character and introduced the movie. We watched it and laughed (and I think I cried a little - touching cry, not laughing cry). Then I rode home in the seatless back of their minivan. It was a fitting way to envelope the experience.

The movie comes out in New York and LA on Friday, with a wider release following.
Hopefully it picks up like Napoleon Dynamite.

Also, stay after the credits.