by John P. Meyer

From Idaho to Mexico: A long, strange trip.

Nacho Libre

Ignacio (his friends call him Nacho), a cook by day in a Mexican orphanage, moonlights as a lucha libre wrestler (a masked wrestler) to raise money to save the orphanage from closure.

Source: Cinema Source

• Showtimes and more on Nacho Libre

From a purely aesthetic point of view (and owning up to predispositions in areas such as cultural bias, societal imprinting and sexual orientation) it should be pointed out that the only attractive person in the movie, Nacho Libre, is a nun.

Now that I think about it, you can ignore the part about sexual orientation - she's pretty much the only attractive person in the movie. In the character of Sister Encarnacion, Ana de la Reguera is a dark-eyed, angel-faced beauty. Slap a habit on Penelope Cruz and you've got the idea.

You've seen the posters, right? Jack Black (who, admittedly, is a funny and talented guy) in tights and bare-chested? Well, get used to that mental image, folks, because if you go to this movie, you're going to be seeing a LOT of Jack Black (as Nacho) bare-chested in (as he calls them) his stretchy pants. Fair warning. You've also perhaps seen the trailer for the film, in which Nacho presents his spandexed backside to the unsuspecting Sister and FLEXES. Well, let me state clearly that this is not even the third-grossest thing he does in the film. Not convinced? Think slow motion Baywatchesque beach-romping action with MAN-BOOBS! And that's only the second-grossest thing.

Truly, Nacho has a physique that only a nun could love. Sister Encarnacion, fortunately for our luchador-wannabe hero, is a nun untroubled by the sort of predispositions mentioned earlier, and seems to appreciate whatever it is about Nacho that could be thought of as attractive. It can't be his selflessness and charity, because he admittedly doesn't care for his cooking duties at the monastery; he even neglects to buy groceries for the orphans' breakfast one morning in order to crash a party attended by wrestling luminaries. Perhaps she admires him for his boldness: I'm guessing he's the first monastic resident to invite her to his cell for post-vespers toast. (No, not "a toast" - these are nuns and monks, for heaven's sake. I'm talking about actual TOAST here.)

Nacho remains haunted by the misdirected course of his adolescence, when he was grabbed up by monks and spirited away to the monastery as punishment for pilfering fringe and beads from various households to use in the creation of a caped luchador costume. The monks (and, presumably, the holy order they represent) consider the sport of lucha libre a bad thing and the luchadores themselves false idols. His longing for the fame and reverence afforded luchadores is revisited upon the adult Nacho one day in the marketplace, when he observes the adulation heaped upon the masked personage of Ramses, as that local celebrity emerges from his chauffeured auto. And thus Nacho's boyhood dream is reborn.

In order to participate in a tag team contest, he solicits the partnership of a neighborhood thief whose Achilles heel is an irresistible craving for corn chips. Esqueleto, Nacho's initially-reluctant teammate, is portrayed by Hector Jimenez with the sort of deadpan earnestness we were expecting (and perhaps hoping) to encounter in this, the second cinematic effort of director Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite). Esqueleto and Nacho train for their first bout by subjecting each other to a series of weird and seemingly random physical abuses, including melons launched from a super-slingshot; barely-blunted arrows fired into the back (don't try this at home); and fresh-squeezed cow plop applied liberally to the face. The effectiveness of this regimen is demonstrated by the fact that they lose the contest. However, they have proven to be wildly entertaining losers, and are therefore paid handsomely by the promoters and invited to participate in future events, establishing a pattern for their career as luchadores.

What follows is a depiction of bout after bout in which our protagonists display unquestioned showmanship (particularly on the part of Nacho, who is adept at stylin’ and profilin’ around the ring as a prelude to being blindsided, steamrolled, chair-whipped or otherwise brought to the canvas for pinning), but none of what it takes to win a match. As the story matures, we are led to believe that this pattern of failure results from Nacho's selfish motives, and that he needs to look to a higher purpose for inspiration. Never mind the possibility that Nacho and Esqueleto may simply be bad fighters.

As viewers of Napoleon Dynamite might have predicted, Nacho Libre defies genre categorization - unless you count the two-film output of Jared Hess as a genre. The charming naiveté and out-of-left-field craziness of the film about the uber-nerd from Idaho with the secret agent name can be found again in this movie: witness the stealth baptism of godless Esqueleto by god-fearing Nacho; the between-rounds watermelon refreshments; or the corn-cob-in-eye-socket-fu practiced upon some local street toughs. What's missing from this effort is the fascination of watching a lead actor reveal the utter other-worldliness of his character's personality over the course of the film. Jack Black is pretty much just a guy up there acting out a role; Jon Heder (as Napoleon) was a phenomenon.

I'll recommend this movie to my friends simply because it flips the bird at Hollywood convention and revels in its own strangeness; but I've got to admit that my primary reaction to much of the 100-minute experience was one of discomfort. And, hey - maybe that's a good thing.

Most effective (in a positive way) use of sound: the truly hair-raising screams emitted by skinny Esqueleto as he is variously knee-dropped, bitten or launched from the ring by burly opponents; you really feel he’s in agony or in fear of his life. And that’s really FUNNY, for some damn reason.

Most effective (in a negative way) use of sound: the noises emanating from the locker room commode stall where Nacho relaxes after his first experience in the ring. Man, I REALLY didn’t want to hear that.

Nod to Napoleon Dynamite: Before his final match with Nacho, Ramses applies chap stick.

Also check out Dan Gattuso's take on this film.

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