G e n t l e m e n B r o n c o s :

Last week, Ross and I fought a series of physical and theoretical hurtles to get to the cast and crew screening of Gentlemen Broncos.

Before the movie came on the screen, there were the usual "look at me" types, the girl with the five colored hair and "dress" that was, by all definitions, a top; the guy who, you know makes at least 100+ grand a year who gets his kicks by looking homeless; and the snobby "artiste" types who, layer upon layer, become more superficial with every cliche sentence. Don't get me wrong, I consider myself an Arts/Entertainment person for sure, but in a respectful way, a way that keeps the sanctity of the work at hand.

So Ross and I sat there, hand in hand, and prepared ourselves for either greatness or a profound lack there of.

The opening scene was typical Hess in that the characters are always less than palatable looking. They're the sort of people you wish had as little close-up of as possible. Each character had a painful touch of the early 90's that, let's be honest, would make anyone who dressed in that time period cringe just thinking about it. The high rise Levi's jeans with the tapered ankles, the shirts tucked in and the looped braided belts, the jean jumpers and scrunchies, and of course, vests galore. Altogether, I felt like the only thing missing was Jesus Jones blaring, "You're Unbelievable" in the background while I flipped up the bill on my bikers cap and the second layer on my oh-so-round sunglasses.

We got through the movie, mostly by laughing at the look of the characters, not by the characters themselves, which was a bit disheartening. I felt, while watching this movie, that a few things kept it from being great:

1) These characters have been done. Both Nacho Libre and now Gentlemen Broncos feel like copies of Napoleon Dynamite.

2) The editing causes more confusion and displacement than a flowing story. I felt like randomness was fine with Napoleon, but with movies like Nacho Libre and Gentlemen Broncos, you have a decided storyline, and randomness causes more hindrance than helpfulness.

3) The music was wrong for the movie. The music actually felt more expensive than the movie its self. Having big name bands like Ozzy Osborne, Boston, and the Scorpions can actually do damage to your movie if you're constantly striving to make it look low budget all around.

4) The characters themselves were outdone by their own wardrobes, and sometimes, their overacting. I felt that the guy who plays Lonnie completely overacted, making his character unbelievable and fake. Michael Angarano who played "Benjin" was quite boring and never really gives you much to root for. Had his character been more in touch, I feel the ending would have had more of a purpose. In fact, the only three characters who really held their own were Jemaine Clement, Sam Rockwell, and the female starring opposite of him.

5) The movie is hiding an inside joke which makes it that much more confusing to a national audience. Had I not known about the joke within the movie, I think I would have enjoyed the movie even less.

In a nutshell, I was disappointed. Cinema, to me, is serious stuff. If you're going to waste people's time and money on 2 hours worth of private jokes, then hit up Sundance and the IFC channel. This movie could have been the next big thing, but not by relying on what originally made you famous, by expanding on that genius and creating something new, something people aren't already quoting and repeating. I feel like, if this trend continues with the Hess movies, we're going to be looking at a M. Knight Shyamalan situation : Big Build-Up, no delivery.