There are 15, maybe 20 minutes of certifiable solid gold scattered throughout Nacho Libre, a comedy about a masked Mexican wrestler, and the second outing by Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess. The rest of the movie is a pretty big disappointment, though, and you can't quite chalk it up to your typical sophomore slump syndrome (although that's part of the problem).
The trouble with Nacho Libre goes deeper, right to the heart of Hess' future as a filmmaker. Even though putting a bankable star or two in your new movie is a logical next step for a formerly low-budget indie director, the much-anticipated collaboration between Hess and fat 'n' sassy Jack Black is anything but a dream team-up. Napoleon Dynamite worked precisely because of its sprawling, no-name cast and droll, deadpan attitude — an attitude in direct contrast to Black's outsized and aggressively skewed screen persona.
Black is more restrained here than usual, but he's still much too much for Hess' oddly inert, minimalist universe. Worse yet, he's pretty much the whole show. Way too much of Nacho Libre simply sits there waiting for us to crack up as Black, sporting a curly wig and moustache, parades his flabby bod around in a pair of blue "stretchy pants" or lets loose with the occasional Tenacious D-ish ditty. Screenwriter Mike White, who worked wonders with Black and director Richard Linklater by wedding their indie sensibilities to the mainstream in School of Rock, is at a loss to achieve a similar alchemy here; the movie is just too slight to sustain Black's mass, and there's just not enough else going on in Nacho Libre to hold our interest.
Nacho Libre (PG) stars Jack Black, Hector Jimenez, Ana de la Reguera, Peter Stormare and Lauro Chartrand. 2.5 stars
This article appears in Jun 21-27, 2006.
