Really Good Fun

Rating: 6/10 (22 August 2006)

"I ate some bugs, I ate some grass I used my hand to wipe my tears" so sings Jack Black just before he is about to risk life and limb against Mexico's finest masked mat-magician. Indeed there are at least two occasions during Nacho Libre where our portly protagonists bursts into song the rest of the movie could have been complete pants yet these two moments of comedic brilliance would have, at least, made the trip half enjoyable. I usually hate comedy songs - indeed the worst moments in the hit TV show Family Guy are always when the characters decide to drown out the humour with verse - yet Jack Black manages to make these moments the highlight of his films. Throw in a few pairs of stretchy pants, an incredibly thin tag team partner and some psycho midget wolf Wrestlers and you have yourself a pretty darn funny movie. Most of the time, anyway.
Black plays Nacho, a soup jockey working in a rural Mexican monastery. He serves horrible looking meals, Oliver Twist style, to a collection of orphans. Fed up, he decides to pursue a career of lucha libre, seeking out a tag team partner, in the mould of thief-cum-really skinny tramp Esqueleto (Héctor Jiménez). All well and swell except his monastery doesn't approve of luchadores, so he must keep this a secret from his fellow monks and nuns. One particular nun, Encarnacion (Ana de la Reguera), becomes the object of Nacho's desires which is an obvious conundrum to the man. They share toast together, although Nacho is careful not to reveal his secret.
Some things in movies are just funny: fart gags, midgets and Jack Black singing. It doesn't take a genius to pull these types of gags off, which is inevitably why most of the film's funniest gags are from the front man of Tenacious D. Jared Hess' previous claim to fame was Napoleon Dynamite which, although incredibly funny in parts, wasn't half deadpan. He decides to stick with that style for his latest project and although it is interesting to see that kind of straight-faced humour mixed with the dirt and weirdness of Hess' vision of Mexico, it was probably not the best way to tell this kind of story. Audience reactions were far higher when Black was allowed to run amuck with his wide-eyed shtick. Nacho Libre may not be the cleverest film in the world, but it doesn't spare on the laughs. Consistently amusing, occasionally hilarious, you shouldn't be disappointed.