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Sloppy directing pins down 'Nacho Libre'

No matter if you "got" the movie or not, 2004's "Napoleon Dynamite" was as much an exercise in style as it was a bone-dry teen comedy that mined humor from its own strenuous flatness. Director Jared Hess, all of 24 at the time, did what a director with vision does: He fashioned a weird, hermetic universe and populated it with a humanlike species that drifted on its own zonked-out frequency. Every static shot and monosyllabic muttering was a precise ingredient in Hess' showy minimalism.

Paramount Pictures 'Nacho Libre' 2 out of 5 stars The verdict: No 'Dynamite' for the director this time. Director: Jared Hess Starring: Jack Black, Hector Jimenez, Troy Gentile, Moises Arias, Richard Montoya Run time: 91 minutes Release date: June 16, 2006 Rating: PG for rough action, and crude humor including dialogue. See showtimes Lucha Libre The Mexican wrestling phenomenon has pop culture in a headlock. On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate 'Nacho Libre'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

I was a big fan of "Napoleon Dynamite" for just these reasons. Its strangeness surprised me; its mock dimwittedness made me laugh. But it also made me wonder if Hess could make any other kind of movie. His quasi-primitivism was his style, and it seemed expressly fit for Napoleon and his pals in the movie's blank rural setting.

The limp Mexican wrestler comedy "Nacho Libre" exposes Hess' weaknesses when he's even remotely out of his element. Not even that fat force of nature Jack Black can light a fire under this flimsy sketch of a movie, in which Hess' directorial tics — his aversion to movement inside the frame, an over-fondness for the deadpan expression — leech the film's energy. Black's manic hilarity, toned down here, doesn't mix well with Hess' ironic distance, and the result is a halting, awkward shambles.

Hess, his wife Jerusha and Mike White, who wrote the delightful Black vehicle "School of Rock," scripted "Nacho Libre," but there's no evidence that even one person labored on the story, characters or jokes. There's less plot than a children's fable, zero character development and no narrative arc. But there is slapstick, wacky flatulence and several gags, some quite amusing, with corn on the cob.

As always, Black plays the arrogant underdog, the tubby schlub with oversized ambitions. He's Nacho, the inept cook at a Mexican monastery, sporting a Vegas perm and matching 'stache. To raise money for the monastery's orphanage, he joins the Lucha Libre wrestlers, those flabby emblems of costumed camp marked by their sequined masks.

He's the worst wrestler ever. He recruits the bony beanpole Esqueleto as his sidekick. They wrestle, badly, but still make money. Esqueleto is played by goofy Mexican actor Héctor Jiménez, whose fleshy mouth frequently opens to expose chompers that look like an explosion at a rock quarry.

Hess savors this kind of physical aberration. Like Fellini or Diane Arbus, he has sideshow tastes, seeking out freaks and geeks, from dwarves and the morbidly obese to guys with crossed-eyes and buck teeth. But he doesn't know what to do with them. They're not there to enhance a dreamlike reality, à la David Lynch, but to be made fun of. When he needs a quick laugh, Hess makes quick non-sequitur cuts to these people. Their grotesqueness is the punch line.

Black, naturally, takes part in the ridicule, making fun of his own squat stature and balloon belly. He makes a worthy foil to spindly Esqueleto — "the Skeleton" — and they manage more than a few funny moments.

For the most part, Hess blows the wrestling matches because he can't do action — his typical shot has the vitality of a postcard — and he hasn't invented enough funny business in the ring. The matches are dull and routine, never mind the furry-faced Pygmy fighters and Black's sporadic posturing. Why Hess didn't let Black cut loose here is baffling.

The movie scratches at bigger ideas, as when Nacho talks to God about the impiety of his wrestling and sticks in a lust interest (the vacuous beauty Ana de la Reguera) for a semblance of narrative density. These things go nowhere, dead before we can care.

"Nacho Libre" feels out of breath, lazy and light. Racial stereotypes and Mexican accents of the Speedy Gonzalez variety got chuckles at a recent screening, yet it's not clear why. People, it seems, are ready to laugh at anything, especially at the movies, where stuff like "Nacho," with a side of equally flavorless nachos, makes for a whopping good time.