Stupid with a capital 'S' but funny enough

Rating: 5/10 (14 June 2006)

Okay, so Jack Black is no Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd when it comes to physical comedy. He's also no Groucho Marx or W.C. Fields when it comes to intellectual humor; and I did not go to his newest work, "Nacho Libre," expecting to see a Preston Sturges or Billy Wilder comedy masterpiece, either.
What I did see, however, was a film that is stupid with a capital "S" but funny enough in it's 90-minute run to persuade me to give it a slight recommendation. I laughed more often than not, so, it worked for me.
Black slobbers a meandering Spanglish accent all over the place playing Ignaciao ("Nacho" for short), a dumpy goofball raised in a rural Mexican orphanage, who later becomes the single worst cook in the world (which he blames on the friars for not buying him proper ingredients). He's not very competent in his monk's duties, either, as he gives the last rites to a man who was just sleeping. Secretly, however, he learns to be one of the Lucha Libre (masked wrestlers who earn fame and adulation in the nearby village).
When the beautiful nun, Sister Encarnación (Ana de la Reguera), comes to the brotherhood, though, he wants to impress her by providing a better meal than the terrible refried beans and chips he serves every day. Seeing a poster in town for a luchador wrestling match which pays the winner 200 pesos, he recruits Esqueleto (which means "The Skeleton," played by Hector Jimenez), a lanky street criminal who once stole the orphanage's nacho chips, and they form a ridiculous tag team.
In cheap, homemade outfits, and with no grappling skills whatsoever, the duo loses, naturally, but gets paid anyway (because the crowd likes them). The losing continues, even though the two attempt to hone their skills by hurling fruit, arrows, rocks and beehives at each other, and climbing up a cliff to drink the yolk from an eagle's egg. Despite earning more and more money (which Nacho uses to buy "important" items like white shoes, polyester stretch pants and powder blue leisure suits), they would like to win a match - at least once.
Conveniently, a battle royale between six other grapplers to decide who will fight the local champion, Ramses (Cesar Gonzales) for $10,000 pesos. When Nacho finishes second to El Silencio, he's booted out of the monastery, but things might just work out for the forlorn loser, anyway. And while this is clearly Jack Black's film, much of the picture is stolen by Jimenez (sort of a whacked-out beanpole Cantinflas), who has some of the best lines and is involved in a few hilarious situations.
Written by Mike White (who penned Black's "Orange County" and "School Of Rock") and the Hess' - Jared and Jerusha ("Napoleon Dynamite"), and directed by Jared Hess ("Napoleon Dynamite"), this isn't going to rate very high on the Cary Grant screwball comedy meter, with far too many scenes of people passing gas, and the slapstick level a notch or two below the Three Stooges.
Overall, though, unless you are really uptight, or buy into the nonsense that this movie is somehow offensive to Latinos, you'll probably snicker at the total absurdity of the effort.