Marshall and the Movies

PREFACE: I mentioned back in Random Factoid #42 that I had gone through a stint of reviewing movies when I was 13. After rummaging through my old home computer, I managed to find some of these reviews. In a special five day mini-series, I will reveal these reviews in their unadulterated form. I leave it up to you to comment, see how my style has changed (or maybe hasn’t). The fourth and penultimate review is of “Nacho Libre,” the second film from the creators of cult hit turned mainstream “Napoleon Dynamite.”

Napoleon Dynamite became a comic success because of how incredibly pathetic it was.  After watching it, you were left to think, “What was that?”  Nacho Libre was advertised to be just that, but this movie actually had a plot.  I’m not so sure that is such a good thing.  Napoleon Dynamite was an anti-climatic string of strange and pitiful events, and Nacho Libre was awkward nonetheless.  I expected it to be Napoleon Dynamite Goes Mexico, and I couldn’t have been more wrong.  Jon Heder put his soul into Napoleon because no one knew who he was, so he had nothing to lose by performing the hell out of him.  Jack Black, on the other hand, feels afraid to dive into character.  He plays the friar Ignacio (nicknamed Nacho) at a Mexican monastery who cooks for the orphans.  However, he has two ungodly interests…wrestling and a new nun at the monastery (played by Ana de la Reguera).  He has no money to buy fresh food with, so he is often left to brew awkward concoctions with chips that a local restaurant owner leaves for him.  While picking up these chips, he gets attacked by a limber homeless guy who steals the chips.  Nacho later recruits this drifter to be his wrestling partner.  Together, they become “Lucha Libre” fighters.  

(NOTE: I get the feeling that this review was unfinished due to its brevity.  I don’t feel right trying to finish it, given the desired effect of posting these reviews.)