Fox Searchlight | USA | 90 min.
Gentlemen Broncos comes from Jared Hess and it involves his usual shtick, for better and mostly worse. The film is uneven, features a series of dull sight gags, and is ultimately forgettable. There are a few bright spots here and there such as Jemaine Clement’s performance and Hess also presents a unique dead pan style at times. Those are the only true saving graces, but they get lost in the handful of problems. This isn’t the worst comedy of the year, but its one of the more mediocre ones.
Benjamin is an aspiring B-level science fiction writer. He lives an uneasy life filled with the most annoying people one could be around. His mother is cooky, his love interest is selfish, and the man he’s always looked up to is a hack. That man he looks up to is Robert Chevalier, a writer who’s at the end of his career. He’s Benjamin’s inspiration and he wants to be just like him, up until Chevalier steals his story. While at writers camp Chevalier comes upon Benjamin’s story while judging a writing contest. He decides to take Michael’s story and pass it off as his own by simply changing most of the names and places. From then on, Benjamin’s life divulges into turmoil.
Unfortunately, the story isn’t focused on the character that it should be. Chevalier is a much more interesting character than Michael. He’s a moronic, indulgent, and depressing individual. He’s at the end of his career and he’s desperate. Michael on the other hand is the same character that we’ve all seen before far too many times. His character arc is the typical underdog story with all the future plot points all predetermined. It is a cliche story, one not told in a new fashion nor in an impressive way for that matter. The film is built upon an episodic series of awkward moments. It comes off as mess, its a handful of comedy sketches tied together in a sloppy fashion.
Jarred Hess showed a vast amount of potential with his directorial debut Napoleon Dynamite. While his follow up Nacho Libre wasn’t by any means on par with Napoleon, it still showed he had directing chops. This is why Gentlemen Broncos is such a disappointment. While Hess shows some advancements in a visual sense, he doesn’t from a storytelling standpoint. He induces unnecessary gross out jokes that fall flat instantly. From a snake poop joke to a series of ball jokes, they’re all unneeded. Hess works better with the smaller details like Chevalier’s blue tooth piece and with other odd ball touches. But those come too scarce and don’t even earn a hefty amount of laughs. On the upside, as stated earlier, Hess has grown in the visuals department. There are a few well framed shots and he throws in a good amount of funny 70’s style zooms.
Gentlemen Broncos ranges from decency to cringe worthy mediocrity. This should have been Hess’s true return to form, instead it’s not even on par with his last hit and miss film Nacho Libre. It’s messy, contains a numerous amount of unfunny gags, and focuses on characters that aren’t easy to care for.