Man in Tights
Nacho Brings New Meaning to "Physical Comedy"

If Jack Black is incapable of any comedy feat, I have yet to see it. I laughed at his love-sick pursuit of the portly Gwyneth Paltrow in Shallow Hal. I thought he was brilliant when he invented "Va-poo-rizor" in Envy. I even laughed when he drop-kicked Will Ferrell's dog off a bridge in Anchorman. There's something about Black that makes him inexplicably funny. Even so, I worried that Nacho Libre might be too far out there for even him to sell.

Nacho Libre
Jack Black is a cook in a Mexican orphanage who decides to seek fame and fortune as a lucha libre wrestler in Nacho Libre. (Paramount, 2006)
Directed by: Jared Hess
Written by: Jared Hess & Jerusha Hess & Mike White
Starring: Jack Black, Ana de la Reguera, Héctor Jiménez,
Darius Rose, and Cesar Gonzalez

Rated PG (for for some rough action, and crude humor including dialogue)
Running time: 100 min.

FilmGuru's Rating : 6 out of 10.

Black plays Brother Ignacio, a cook in a Mexican orphanage. Despite his "calling," he is a pretty poor cook and resents the monks for not giving him more priestly duties. His secret desire is to be a luchador, a costumed lucha libre wrestler.

When Sister Encarnación (Ana de la Reguera) becomes the teacher at the orphanage, Ignacio tries in vain to impress her. Unable to feed the children with the scraps he has been given, Ignacio leaves the orphanage to seek his fortune. With the help of a local called Esqueleto (Héctor Jiménez), he decides to forego his religious path and don the mask of the luchador as "Nacho."

What ensues is a series of sadistic training sequences, as if they had been designed by the Marquis de Sade. Nothing makes sense, except it's funny to watch. When Nacho and Esqueleto lose their first match, they are surprised to discover that they still receive pay. It is no surprise, therefore, that Nacho decides to return to the orphanage (where he can be near Sister Encarnación) while moonlighting as a luchador.

Writers Jared and Jerusha Hess (Napoleon Dynamite) and Mike White (School of Rock) penned this farcical story based on the lucha libre in Mexico and the Southwestern US. While predictable to a fault, it is filled with offbeat comedy. At times it is very funny, and other times it is strained. Some of the jokes are surreal, as when he goes off into the "wilderness" only to discover that a town is a hundred feet away. Others, such as the wrestling scenes, are purely physical.

The "romance" in the film is awkward, at best, because the object of Nacho's affection is a nun. Even that, though, is so bizarre and innocent that it seems like a school-boy crush. Nacho's hilarious song for Sister Encarnación left me laughing more than any other moment in the film.

I wasn't a fan of the Hess brothers' Napoleon Dynamite, so I worried that this also might be more for a younger audience. Instead, I found it to be more typical of Black's usual style, as if the film had been written with him in mind. Is it his best work? No. Is it silly? Yes. Sometimes all I need is a good, stupid movie to make me laugh.