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Gentlemen Broncos'

By COLIN COVERT Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

Once upon a time there was a weird little thrift-shop comedy called "Napoleon Dynamite." It came out of nowhere (well, almost nowhere: Utah) with a no-name cast, adhered to no known comedic formula, and became a smash.

While it captured lightning in a bottle, it had unfortunate aftereffects. It gave its giraffe-like star, Jon Heder, a subsequent acting career that defines the term "sophomore slump." And it empowered writer/director Jared Hess to keep making movies where eccentricity outweighs humor. First, there was the disappointing "Nacho Libre," starring Jack Black as a Mexican monk who moonlights as a masked wrestler. Now there's "Gentlemen Broncos," a tedious and unfocused concoction involving science fiction, plagiarism and the nightgown industry.

Where "Napoleon's" characters were oddly adorable ugly ducklings, "Gentlemen's" are merely awkward. Benjamin (Michael Angarano) is a solitary kid who lives in a dome house with his doting single mom (Jennifer Coolidge). It's a creative home: She designs hideous fashions and he fills notebooks with lurid sci-fi novellas. At Cletus Fest, "the best writer's camp in Utah," Benjamin meets bossy Tabatha, a shameless tease, and his idol, Dr. Ronald Chevalier (Jemaine Clement of TV's "Flight of the Conchords"), a pretentious fantasy author on the skids.

The flimsy plot revolves around Chevalier plagiarizing Benjamin's manuscript "Yeast Lords: The Bronco Years," and changing the he-man hero into a lisping sissy. The film dramatizes both writers' versions, with Cyclops soldiers, flying battle stags and bald space babes. Sam Rockwell ("Moon") earns a lifetime Good Sport merit badge by playing both bearlike Bronco and delicate, hair-swishing Brutus.

The story blows here and there like a tumbleweed, with Benjamin discovering his manhood by standing up to his false idol. Angarano, whose odd hangdog face has a winsome solemnity, is one of the few performers to emerge unscathed. The film's grotesque violence extends to firehose-caliber projectile vomit, laser-firing bra cannons and a poisoned dart shot into Ben's mother's chest.

When she's struck, you think: Look on the bright side - she may get to miss the rest of the movie.

GENTLEMEN BRONCOS

1 star

Starring: Michael Angarano, Jennifer Coolidge, Jemaine Clement, Sam Rockwell

Directed by: Jared Hess

Rated PG-13 for crude humor