Clement Serves as Beast of Burden in Hess's Disjointed 'Gentlemen Broncos'

Come aboard the nostalgia ferry and travel back to a time when everyone was voting for Pedro. With a meme-spawning petri dish of cult proportions, Jared Hess, his friends and family and $400,000 gave the world the classic nerd flick "Napoleon Dynamite," a phenomenon rivaled in quotability only by "Borat" two years later.

The magic formula that Hess happened upon-deadpan acting, kitschy set decoration, pseudo-retro aesthetics, an awkwardly endearing protagonist-is rehashed in his latest film, "Gentlemen Broncos." What he adds to the mix this time is a fixed gaze on the comically rich subculture of science fiction and fantasy and a slew of recognizable faces.

Hess's film is invested in the absurdity of its world, looking through the eyes of a homeschooled and sci-fi novella-writing wonder kid, Benjamin Purvis (Michael Angarano). Sent off to the writing-workshop Cletus Festival by his mother (Jennifer Coolidge), Benjamin meets his idol, sci-fi author Ronald Chevalier (Jemaine Clement) but becomes disenchanted with the man's egocentric teaching style. Threats from his publisher move Chevalier to covertly alter Benjamin's novella "Yeast Lords," which was submitted for a contest that Chevalier is judging. The plagiarized work achieves success, and Benjamin's contest submission garners no response.

Taken under the conniving wings of new friends Tabatha and "producer" Lonnie, Benjamin sells his story to be videotaped in DIY fashion and watches as his words are butchered. The film interweaves two slightly higher-quality interpretations of the text as well, starring Sam Rockwell alternately as Benjamin's lead, Bronco, and Chevalier's cross-dressing equivalent, Brutus.

What becomes apparent with the manifestations of Benjamin's rich imagination is the flatness of the characters. Tabatha and Lonnie are broadly painted, eerily reminiscent of Napoleon Dynamite's friends but without their endearing loyalty. Rockwell's Bronco is suffused with Texan charm, but the stereotypical homosexual Brutus is difficult to digest. The lack of irony in his presentation lends a sophomoric tint to the humor.

Benjamin is thrown onto many of the same tableaux of his polyester suit-rocking, energy drink-downing predecessor. There's the school bus scene and the auditorium scene, and there's even a new canon of strange artwork thrown into the mix (harpies with laser-shooting mammary glands replace the ligers of Napoleon's drawings). This time, however, Benjamin and his guileless demeanor play the straight man, with the eccentricities of his friends and mother providing the fodder for laughs.

"Gentlemen Broncos" is not afraid to explore absurd goose trails. In general, however, the film feels a bit rushed and disjointed. What saves it from being ultimately forgettable fare is Clement's Chevalier. With a wonderfully resonant voice, an ever-present bluetooth headset that is never used and a Live Long and Prosper-style bowing gesture, Clement's presence on camera is iconic.

Even still, despite its enjoyable perspective shifts, the film bursts through the limit of absurdity it was already pushing against. Ultimately, the laughs it elicits fail to bind together the disparities that the plot attempts to contain.