Gentlemen Broncos

Purposely ridiculous and quirky, this movie should by no means be taken seriously and it seems to be content with that. It was one of those movies that I really wanted to like but it was completely disappointing.

Gentlemen Broncos was directed by the same person who did Napoleon Dynamite, Jared Hess. I was unaware of this at the start but it’s so remarkably similar to Napoleon Dynamite that after just seeing the opening credit sequence I immediately knew the director was. It has all the same type of humor, dialog and style as Napoleon Dynamite, except not nearly as good. Perhaps just sense it was done before in an all too familiar way it felt like a major let down.

It’s about a young outcast who writes sci-fi stories that no one likes. He ends up going to a writers’ convention where he meets his writer idol named Chevalier. After Chevalier reads his story, he claims it as his own and it becomes a big hit. Meanwhile, the main characters friends create a movie based on the same story and it also gains some recognition. Chevalier gets worried that he will be exploited if it was found out that he wasn’t the original author of this book. Trust me, it sounds a lot more interesting then the movie ended up being.

I’ll admit that I was mainly interested in this movie because Jemaine Clement from Flight of the Conchords co-starred in it. He plays Chevalier. I also really enjoyed the previous movie he was in Eagle Vs Shark, which also shares the same style and feel as this, except that it was a much better film. I thought his character was the only thing that saved this film from being a complete disaster.

Only but a few mere chuckles was all this received and it would have been much more original if he didn’t do Napoleon Dynamite first. Even for Jemaine Clement fans as myself, it’s not worth going out of your way to watch it.