Benjamin
(Michael Angarano) is a homeschooled nerd who writes a shitty sci-fi story. He takes the story to a writer’s camp where his
idol, a snooty sci-fi author (Jemaine Clement) steals his idea and uses it for
his next book. Meanwhile, a girl he has
a crush on (Halley Feiffer) makes a movie based on Benjamin’s story and winds
up getting sued. Eventually, Benjamin
goes to confront his idol at a book signing to set things straight.
I
was a fan of director Jared Hess’ Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre, but
somehow never got around to seeing this. It certainly had promise, and the first act is
sort of amusing. I liked the scenes from
the book, which star Sam Rockwell in a variety of odd costumes. I also enjoyed the scenes of Feiffer making
the movie based on the book. Clement
gets a couple of laughs from playing the overly self-absorbed author, as does Jennifer
Coolidge as Angarano’s kooky mother.
Unfortunately,
these sporadic moments are about as good as it gets. Unlike Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre,
Gentlemen Broncos is missing the important factor that made those films work: Heart.
Without it, it simply becomes a series of awkward scenes of quirky
losers stumbling about. The tacked-on
fantasy scenes help give the feeling that this might’ve been intended as a
short at one point, but Hess kept tossing everything but the kitchen sink in
there to get it up to feature length.
(Likewise, the scenes of Coolidge being seduced by a nightgown magnate
go nowhere.) In fact, I think we
would’ve been better off had it been a short.
At ninety minutes the offbeat hijinks eventually grow tiresome and you quickly
become immune to whatever charm the film might’ve once had.
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