With Napolean Dynamite, director Joshua Hess did more than lift a name from Elvis Costello; he made a cultural typhoon of catch phrases, t-shirts, and schwag. With Nacho Libre, Hess dumbs down dumb to a near catatonic stupor that not even Jack Black can uplift. Playing the titular Nacho, Black’s an unfocused whirlwind of smarm and energy, but his sad-sack character has nothing going for him, nor is there any reason to root for his orphaned friar-turned-luchador. The secondary characters are just a collection of ‘look how weird they are’ cut-outs, and the laughs are few and far between.
It’s a sad day when a film doesn’t even live up to the expectations set by the Nickolodeon Films logo, but that day has come.
Nacho Libre
1 Star