Gentlemen Broncos

Day 6/192-Gentlemen Broncos: Starring Jemaine Clement and Michael Angarano

The films of Jared Hess should be viewed as the perfect example of the law of diminishing returns. First of all we had Napoleon Dynamite: a quirky, surreal comedy that gave us a new kind of hero and caught us all off-guard. Second we had Nacho Libre, which showed signs that Hess's approach to film was becoming tired. Now, fresh from the brain of that same man, we have Gentlemen Broncos, which save for a hilarious performance from Jemaine Clement, is a complete and utter mess.


It is in no way absurd to ask how this film was even made. Gentlemen Broncos is self-aware, pretentious, it tries too hard to be unconventional and is not only unfunny, but very nearly unwatchable.

So, Gentlemen Broncos is about Benjamin(Angarano), a young science-fiction writer who travels to attend Cletus Fest in an effort to meet his all-time hero, Chevalier(Clement). Chevalier invites all of the students at the festival to submit their entries for a competition he is running for emerging young writers. But when Chevalier finds out that his last book has been rejected by the publishers, he comes across Benjamin's entry "Yeast Lords" and steals it for himself.



I would probably recommend this film if it was ten minutes long and just featured all of the parts with Chevalier, but as it is the film is littered with plenty of completely abhorrent characters and feels about nine hours long.

Gentlemen Broncos manages to fit in jokes about excrement, vomit, testicles and transsexuals and is at times as disgusting as it is lacking in humour. Incredibly childish when it goes for laughs directly and when trying to sandwich them in without you noticing, it seems as if Hess has just forgotten what it was that was funny about Napoleon Dynamite and has gone for a 'hit and hope' approach to comedy and it is very clear that this has not paid off.

In the other world segments that feature Sam Rockwell as Bronco, depicting Benjamin's novel "Yeast Lords", it begins to look promising but that is quickly removed by nonsensical mutterings and downright awful direction.



I think I may now be ready to give up on Jared Hess as a filmmaker and it astounds me that so many of his supporters are still calling this a good film. It is definitely in the top five worst films I have seen this year and it could be a potential Wolfman beater for the number one spot. Awful.

2/10