Gentlemen Broncos is a quirky, offbeat comedy from the same director who brought us 'Napolean Dynamite'. We first meet our protagonist, 'Benjamin Purvis' with his ditsy mother, Judith, sending him off to a two day seminar for aspiring adolescent sci-fi fantasy writers entitled 'The Cletus Fest'. While on the bus going to the festival he befriends two attendees, Lonnie (a gay Mexican-American filmmaker responsible for a multitude of low-budget films and his sidekick Tabatha, an aspiring but hopelessly untalented screenwriter).
Benjamin has written his own sci-fi fantasy opus entitled "The Yeast Lords: The Bronco Years". He hopes to get advice from Dr. Ronald Chevalier, a once successful fantasy writer, who now has writer's block and has been warned by his publisher to come up with something fresh. Chevalier reminds me of the character 'Roger De Bris' from the original Mel Brooks 1968 'Producers' movie—a pretentious, affected theater director (Jermaine Clement is similarly a hoot as the crazy fantasy author).
Chevalier is at the Cletus Fest because he needs the money and ends up teaching a workshop on how to create better character names for sci-fi fantasy novels (when Benjamin tells Chevalier he's using 'Bronco' as his main character title, Chevalier feels 'Broncanus' will work much better). Even more outrageous are Chevalier's original book cover illustrations for his 'Cyborg Harpie' series.
Cheavlier is also one of the judges for a writing competition at the Cletus Fest. Benjamin hands his script in and Chevalier ends up stealing it, simply changing the character names (as he recommends during the earlier 'workshop'). Throughout the film, we are treated to two different (and equally outrageous) film versions of Benjamin's novel. The first 'treatment' is the way Benjamin imagines it: his hero 'Bronco' battles the 'Yeast Lords' (who appear to be a bunch of Cyclops on a barren asteroid) who have stolen Bronco's 'gonads'. After Lonnie offers Benjamin $500 (with a postdated check, one year from now), Lonnie goes ahead and creates his own hack version of 'The Yeast Lords', casting himself along with Benjamin's 'Guardian Angel' who has a penchant for snakes that defecate (the 'Angel' is hired at the behest of Benjamin's mother who feels her son is in need of more friends).
Meanwhile, Benjamin is trying to help his mother's fashion design business get off the ground. She hears that a wealthy investor, Don Carlos, might be interested in promoting her business; but when she shows up at his mansion, he cavalierly makes it known that if she expects to have him invest in the business, she'll be required to have sex with him. After his advances are met with her screams, the demented millionaire fires a gun at both Benjamin and his mother. They take off in their car and just escape being shot.
Things go from bad to worse for Benjamin when Lonnie convinces him to star in Tabatha's new film. At the film's premiere, Benjamin realizes that Lonnie has made him look like an idiot and that Tabatha's film is horrible; he runs out of the theater and throws up. In an over the top scene, Tabatha runs out of the theater too and expresses her love for Benjamin by kissing him, even though his vomit still covers part of his face. Benjamin eventually discovers Cheavlier's plagiarized version of his book (now entitled 'Brutus and Balzaak') on a display rack in a bookstore and later attacks the dastardly fantasy author at a book signing. All seems lost when Benjamin is arrested and thrown in jail. His Mom saves the day when she reveals that she's registered all of Benjamin's books with the Writer's Guild ever since he began writing. Now that Benjamin can prove he holds the copyright to his work, all of Chevalier's books are destroyed and Benjamin becomes successful enough to finance his mother's first fashion show.
On the plus side, the film's creator, Jared Hess, has showed improvement in his screen writing abilities in that his current protagonist (Benjamin) is actually warm and likable as opposed to the unlikeable Napolean Dynamite. What's more, Hess tells a story here that is not only imaginative but holds your interest from beginning to end. Jermaine Clement gives a strong satirical performance mocking the world of sci-fi fantasy writers and their misguided adolescent fans.
On the down side, those 'film versions' of the 'The Yeast Lords', get kind of repetitious and you could say that the joke wears thin. While Cheavlier and to a lesser extent, Lonnie, are amusing characters, I found the two female principals, Judith and Tabatha, too clownish to be taken too seriously (despite Judith coming through for Benjamin in the end). Hess seems conflicted as to his feelings toward women in general-while his portrayal of the two women can be viewed as an 'affectionate send-up', at the same time he ridicules them (he wants us to laugh at both of them for their lack of talent—in Judith's case, it's her ridiculous fashion designs and in the case of Tabatha, her incredible pretentiousness as a screenwriter).
Gentlemen Broncos will not win any awards as the next Citizen Kane. But as an occasionally amusing, offbeat satire of the little known world of sci-fi fantasy writing, it's worth at least one look.
Benjamin has written his own sci-fi fantasy opus entitled "The Yeast Lords: The Bronco Years". He hopes to get advice from Dr. Ronald Chevalier, a once successful fantasy writer, who now has writer's block and has been warned by his publisher to come up with something fresh. Chevalier reminds me of the character 'Roger De Bris' from the original Mel Brooks 1968 'Producers' movie—a pretentious, affected theater director (Jermaine Clement is similarly a hoot as the crazy fantasy author).
Chevalier is at the Cletus Fest because he needs the money and ends up teaching a workshop on how to create better character names for sci-fi fantasy novels (when Benjamin tells Chevalier he's using 'Bronco' as his main character title, Chevalier feels 'Broncanus' will work much better). Even more outrageous are Chevalier's original book cover illustrations for his 'Cyborg Harpie' series.
Cheavlier is also one of the judges for a writing competition at the Cletus Fest. Benjamin hands his script in and Chevalier ends up stealing it, simply changing the character names (as he recommends during the earlier 'workshop'). Throughout the film, we are treated to two different (and equally outrageous) film versions of Benjamin's novel. The first 'treatment' is the way Benjamin imagines it: his hero 'Bronco' battles the 'Yeast Lords' (who appear to be a bunch of Cyclops on a barren asteroid) who have stolen Bronco's 'gonads'. After Lonnie offers Benjamin $500 (with a postdated check, one year from now), Lonnie goes ahead and creates his own hack version of 'The Yeast Lords', casting himself along with Benjamin's 'Guardian Angel' who has a penchant for snakes that defecate (the 'Angel' is hired at the behest of Benjamin's mother who feels her son is in need of more friends).
Meanwhile, Benjamin is trying to help his mother's fashion design business get off the ground. She hears that a wealthy investor, Don Carlos, might be interested in promoting her business; but when she shows up at his mansion, he cavalierly makes it known that if she expects to have him invest in the business, she'll be required to have sex with him. After his advances are met with her screams, the demented millionaire fires a gun at both Benjamin and his mother. They take off in their car and just escape being shot.
Things go from bad to worse for Benjamin when Lonnie convinces him to star in Tabatha's new film. At the film's premiere, Benjamin realizes that Lonnie has made him look like an idiot and that Tabatha's film is horrible; he runs out of the theater and throws up. In an over the top scene, Tabatha runs out of the theater too and expresses her love for Benjamin by kissing him, even though his vomit still covers part of his face. Benjamin eventually discovers Cheavlier's plagiarized version of his book (now entitled 'Brutus and Balzaak') on a display rack in a bookstore and later attacks the dastardly fantasy author at a book signing. All seems lost when Benjamin is arrested and thrown in jail. His Mom saves the day when she reveals that she's registered all of Benjamin's books with the Writer's Guild ever since he began writing. Now that Benjamin can prove he holds the copyright to his work, all of Chevalier's books are destroyed and Benjamin becomes successful enough to finance his mother's first fashion show.
On the plus side, the film's creator, Jared Hess, has showed improvement in his screen writing abilities in that his current protagonist (Benjamin) is actually warm and likable as opposed to the unlikeable Napolean Dynamite. What's more, Hess tells a story here that is not only imaginative but holds your interest from beginning to end. Jermaine Clement gives a strong satirical performance mocking the world of sci-fi fantasy writers and their misguided adolescent fans.
On the down side, those 'film versions' of the 'The Yeast Lords', get kind of repetitious and you could say that the joke wears thin. While Cheavlier and to a lesser extent, Lonnie, are amusing characters, I found the two female principals, Judith and Tabatha, too clownish to be taken too seriously (despite Judith coming through for Benjamin in the end). Hess seems conflicted as to his feelings toward women in general-while his portrayal of the two women can be viewed as an 'affectionate send-up', at the same time he ridicules them (he wants us to laugh at both of them for their lack of talent—in Judith's case, it's her ridiculous fashion designs and in the case of Tabatha, her incredible pretentiousness as a screenwriter).
Gentlemen Broncos will not win any awards as the next Citizen Kane. But as an occasionally amusing, offbeat satire of the little known world of sci-fi fantasy writing, it's worth at least one look.