Customer Reviews

Gentlemen Broncos [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

I had seen reviews for this movie on Rotten Tomatoes and rated on IMDB and can't understand why it got such horrible reviews. I just watched this movie tonight and found it absolutely hilarious from start to finish. Clement and Rockwell are great, and Mike White makes me bust out laughing in every scene he is in. This is an exceedingly original film, I can't think of anything to compare it to off the top of my head, and the fact that Cher and the Scorpions are both in the soundtrack makes all the more loopy. PLEASE GIVE THIS MOVIE A CHANCE!

As soon as I heard about Jared Hess' latest project, I was excited to see it - even before the Dr. Chevalier viral videos were released.

So I was a tad let down to hear the negative buzz surrounding the film, and to discover it wouldn't be playing in any nearby theaters.

Even still, I decided to take a chance and purchase it on BluRay instead of renting. I'm one of the minority who really liked not only Napoleon Dynamite, but ALSO enjoyed Nacho Libre (typical response to Nacho Libre was poor). So I figured Gentlemen Broncos was a safe bet. ...and it turns out that it was!

Admittedly, there are a couple of "what the heck" scenes (particularly those involving Halley Feiffer) which I think some will find a bit off-putting if not totally repulsive, but overall the film is chock full of hilarious gems. (The PG-13 rating was due primarily to crude humor. There was one instance where "ape sh**" was used, but no swearing beyond that.)

I thought all of the characters were very well-played by their respective actors. Jemaine Clement's Ronald Chevalier is often cited as the show-stealer, and for good reason, but I found myself wanting to see more of Sam Rockwell's Bronco character. His near-hillbilly (fantastic southern accent) action hero portrayal was delightful to watch. I laughed hysterically at his "What the crap?!" reaction upon waking up in Daysius' lab.

It did seem like there could've been more extra features, but maybe that was because I'd seen many of them (the "Webspots") online prior to the release. The behind-the-scenes was a treat, which I would also liked to have seen more of, but the outtakes made up for it.

I went into this movie knowing NOTHING about it. And I LOVED it. For me personally this is Hess' best film. It's incredibly quirky, there are so many great moments. Sam Rockwell is comic gold. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who liked his other films at all.

I would also like to say that I think the price of the DVD is pretty ridiculous and will inevitably spurn piracy. I am torn about buying it. I want a copy pretty badly but I don't know if I should wait the price out or not.

I want to add to the correction of the 1 star review as having just seen this film I was telling friends about it and they said it had been quite well panned. I watched this with an open mind and after 10 minutes or so I was hooked. As well reported this is another offering from the creators of `Napoleon Dynamite' - `Vote for Pedro' etc., husband and wife Jared and Jerusha Hess. They specialise in off the wall characters that are just this side of being medically sectioned, but who are in many ways life affirming.

This tells the story of Benjamin played by Michael Angarano who writes sci-fi and his dear mum (who designs and makes clothes for the terminally bizarre ladies of this planet) sends him on a weekend literary festival where Benjamin's hero sci-fi writer (Dr. Ronald Chevalier) is not only giving work shops but judging the stories for a possible shot at being published. He makes some friends and his story is picked up and plagiarised by the brilliantly erudite `Chevalier'; played by Jemaine Clements (Flight of the Conchords'.

The story is told and interwoven with the story of his book `Yeast Lords' being played out in the two alternate versions of the book by Sam Rockwell playing the eponymous `Bronco' and alternating as `Brutus with Ballzac' (his inter galactic wolf dog type thing - it was a Lynx in the original version.)

Anyway there are brilliantly comic moments that all tie together in what for me was a really enjoyable hour and a half, so please approach this with an open mind and if you do you will hopefully find that this is a little under estimated gem.

P.S. I have since seen this film again and it really is a grower, one where you get more on a subsequent viewing, especially if you keep an eye on the background action - touch of genius.

Gentlemen Broncos is the latest oddball comedy from Jared Hess, director of Napolean Dynamite. It's a film for anybody who's ever loved a bad sci-fi story or aspired to write one of their own. Allow me to rephrase that: this is not a film for everyone. One must possess an affection for the cheesiest of low-budget science fiction and fantasy for the comedy in this film to work it's insane magic. But that magic is pretty damn magical when it does work.

This is the simple story of a boy with a dream and the subsequent raping of that dream by idiot film producers and an unscrupulous author. This is a story that will not be unfamiliar to film fans and it does a great job spoofing the eternal conflict between writer and filmmaker as well as the cutthroat nature of the entertainment industry. Everybody should know by now that anything you write and you don't want stolen needs to be registered and/or copyrighted before showing it anywhere. What makes this particular standard song-and-dance anything but is the sheer insanity and whimsy of the material in the film, which contains several scenes from different interpretations of varying quality of the contested book "Yeast Lords: The Bronco Years" Is it the surveillance does and the battle stags that give the story in question it's charm? Maybe. Moments like pained hero angrily shouting "You took my nads!"? A little. Poop-coated blow darts? Why not. Black Sabbath-fueled cross-dressing rampage? If that's your thing. Illustrations featuring space Harpies' mammary cannons? I'd like to think so. All of the quotable quotes that are too bizarre for me to recall at the moment? Probably. Puke and testicle jokes? Depends. The point is, if you have a taste for the unusual and an appreciation of cheesy genre books and films then you will probably get a kick out of this one. If you go in expecting Napolean Dynamite 2 or anything approaching standard Hollywood fare, don't go in at all. This is for the kids who grew up on Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers and movies about giant fire-breathing turtles and ant queens who control humans with pheromones. The rest of y'all can take a hike.

The cast of characters is the usual troupe of rejects whose faces are frozen in bizarre expressions, talk in an awkward and apparently brain-damaged manner, and have strange senses of style. After the novelty of Napolean Dynamite and Jack Black's rescuing of Hess' other film, Nacho Libre, this motif has worn a bit thin and feels contrived at this point. However, as Black made Nacho work, Broncos has a savior as well. Jemaine Clement of HBO's hysterical musical comedy series Flight of the Conchords gives an absolutely flawless performance as a pretentious and self-important sci-fi novelist whose appearances at conventions (his workshop on believable fantasy character names is indispensable) and signings are responsible for most of the knowing guffaws that any fan of the art form is likely to experience while viewing this. That man is damn funny and would have earned this flick a pass all by himself.

"Gentlemen Broncanous" (ooh, that DOES have a nice ring to it!!) is the This is Spinal Tap of low-rent sci-fi. It's both an homage/tribute and a satirical parody of the genre. Not everybody is going to appreciate it, but the ones who do will appreciate it a lot. You know who you are. Check it out.

The followers of this crew who have enjoyed their creations (Nacho Libre, Napolean Dynamite) will absolutely love this piece, but I think once again Sam Rockwell steals another film and I think he should be the one on the cover art.

The story follows the universe of a teen writer living in a desolate place (similar to Dynamite - except bleaker), and the fictional universe of his creation led by the hero called Bronco/Brutus - the ever changing Sam Rockwell. Along the way we are spattered with the absolute epitome of nerds and a population living an uneventful Utah existence. But with this journey we see some improv performances that fit right in with how these guys make their stories so unique. The Blu is packed with a volume of material including:

* Deleted scenes, 5:53 minutes. Glad they were cut but it will be more for the fans.
* Outtakes, 8:48 minutes. Hilarious and worthy of every Sam Rockwell laugh.
* Behind the scenes, 15:29 minutes. A valid look into production and special effects, with the usual camp feel of a Hess film. The amount of improv is verified in all of the acting, but it still shows how some of the thinking materializes in the Hess' noggins.
* Mini docs, 17 clips totaling 25 minutes. I wish these would have been placed as part of the behind the scenes, as it gets tedious to scroll through all of them, even with the play all option. Being an obvious fan of Rockwell, I recommend watching the 2nd, 7th, 8th, 14th and 15th minis (or the ones that have Sam in the title selection) - as he manages to show the sides of him (humorous and serious even in the most lamest of sequences) that makes him the owner of this film.

The Blu clarity is decent but deliberately flawed in some of the sci-fi sequences, otherwise a good transfer. The DTS gets a resounding usage in all of the battle scenes and is the best mix to date for their type of film making. Region coded A, English, Spanish and French language with English and Spanish subs only. A thorough product for the people that love this group, and maybe a renter if you sit on the fence of how you like their previous work.

I just finished watching this movie. It was hilarious. Every single character in the movie has something about them that makes me laugh out loud. Sam Rockwell was great switching from the macho Bronco to the effeminate Brutus. I loved the use of low quality special effects, and I loved the location of the movie. Everything about it reeked of late 70s and early 80s.
I loved how cluelessly sleazy the characters are (Especially the guardian angel!)
I saw that this film got negative reviews, which is why I gave it a chance. The majority of people do not seem to embrace the kind of humor that I adore. I love humor that is dry, and weird, and uncomfortable. This movie does not disappoint in that department.

If you like awkward, dorky movies that are off the beaten path, then this is the movie for you.

Sorry, Yankees/Tigers. During one of your (maddening) commercial breaks I went channel surfing, and landed on one of the HBOs depicting a wild-looking (and heavily manged) Sam Rockwell astride a stuffed stag deer assaulting some hilltop being defended by actors in really, really bad cyclone makeup.

And the Knob Creek I was sipping hadn't even kicked in. . .

So much for baseball; I left my flat screen where it 'twas, and watched the quirky freak fest known as GENTLEMEN BRONCOS. From the goofy, arcane expressions by the actors, along with horrifically awful and cheap depictions of an equally awful sci-fi story (titled "Yeast Lords"), I immediately suspected the makers of the ingenuous Napoleon Dynamite were involved. Turns out, that is entirely correct. This low-energy, badly made, downright goofy film about a nerdy sci-fi author wannabe getting his "Yeast Lords" manuscript plagiarized by his favorite author is as mesmerizing as it is entertaining. This is the proverbial train wreck; there's just no turning away from the bizarre and surreal and nonsensical images that roll like psychedelic waves. I still may need to see my shrink after viewing GENTLEMEN BRONCOS, but at least I can tell him my new mental dysfunction was fun to acquire.

Michael Angarano, Jennifer Coolidge, Jemaine Clement, Hector Jimenez, Halley Feiffer, and the hysterical Mike White (along with Rockwell, of course)--among several others--all give banal, quirky, yet deliciously delightful performances. Am definitely looking forward to catching this myopic mess again--baseball playoffs or no.
--D. Mikels, Author, The Reckoning

This film builds on the themes of the previous one, 'Napoleon Dynamite', with odd and highly repressed characters suffocating under the endlessly banal tension of their lives. Unlike Napoleon, it also contains a wildly imaginative, hilarious interlocking science fiction adventure by the young sci-fi author protagonist, however, and this element makes this film the better of the two. This is a very offbeat, imaginative pseudo-science fiction adolescent coming of age story that is sure to delight anyone with an imagination, especially anyone who has experienced the stupendously nerdy world of science fiction culture and fandom.

It took folks a little while to warm up to Napoleon Dynamite; It will take even longer for Gentlemen Broncos. This is a great movie to watch with a group of friends, but be opened minded on the humor. Hess did a terrific job in creating some extremely awkward moments between characters.