GENTLEMEN BRONCOS — ★★ — Michael Angarano, Jemaine Clement, Sam Rockwell; rated PG-13 (vulgarity, violence, profanity, drugs, slurs); in general release
Filmmakers usually mature over time. Jared Hess, on the other hand, appears to be getting more juvenile.
His follow-up to the 2004 smash hit "Napoleon Dynamite" was "Nacho Libre," a 2006 slapstick comedy filled with flatulence humor.
The follow-up to that film is "Gentlemen Broncos," another slacker-doofus comedy that has an unfortunate obsession with projectile vomiting and scatological humor.
It's also more mean-spirited than it is genial, at least in terms of the way it treats its characters. That's off-putting, to put it mildly.
Of course, the movie can be funny when it stays on target. But when it's strays, it gets pretty ugly, and it can be a little painful.
Michael Angarano stars as Benjamin, a teen who's obsessed with writing science-fiction novels.
He's been invited to a writers camp, which is how his latest magnum opus finds its way to Ronald Chevalier (Jemaine Clement).
This once-popular novelist is in a writing slump. But Chevalier is one of guest speakers and instructors at the camp. He's supposed to be judging amateur manuscripts, but is wowed by Benjamin's submission, "Yeast Lords."
So he liberally "borrows" from Benjamin's book, only changing a few key details and names before publishing it under his own name.
In the meantime, Benjamin has also sold the rights to "Yeast Lords" to Donnie (Hector Jimenez, from "Nacho Libre"), a would-be film auteur who wants to turn it into a low-budget feature.
There's no shortage of ideas here. Some of them are good and worth pursuing. (Almost everything involving Clement's shameless, self-involved Chevalier is amusing, as are the "Yeast Lords" sequences, in which Sam Rockwell plays dual roles.)
But another subplot follows Benjamin's well-meaning but clueless mother (Jennifer Coolidge), who has her own line of "fashions." It's not even remotely funny, nor are the noxious gross-out gags.
(Sharp-eyed audiences should look for notable Salt Lake and Tooele locations that were used in the film, including the Main Street Sam Weller's bookstore location.)
"Gentlemen Broncos" is rated PG-13 and features crude sight gags, jokes and references (some dealing with various bodily functions, as well as others that are sexual in nature), mostly comic violence (fisticuffs, gunplay, laser blasts, and explosive and vehicular mayhem), scattered profanity, drug content (darts and toxins), and derogatory language and slurs. Running time: 90 minutes.
e-mail: jeff@desnews.com