So what the hell is Nacho Libre? In English, it translates to "Nacho Frees"… which means nothing except that perhaps freedom comes with jalapenos and extra cheese. The movie is the story of a Mexican priest named Ignacio (Jack) who throws on a wrestling outfit and moonlights as a wrestler to raise money for his orphanage.


Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess puts his directorial hype to good use on a script by School of Rock writer Mike White and starring Jack Black. Just imagine what Napoleon Dynamite might have been like… if it were funny.

Nacho Libre stars the Hollywood hot Black as a Mexican priest obsessed with Lucha Libre. Lucha Libre is Mexican wrestling. Picture the WWE only much dumber. Lucha Libre is huge south of the border, and there have been a few films on the subject. But to call Nacho Libre a serious wrestling film is a bit of a stretch. Don’t expect this movie to do wonders for the sport; Jared Hess’s movie will probably spend more time mocking wrestling than it will embracing it.

That’s alright, wrestling begs to be made fun of, and shirtless Jack Black is a great way to do it. It’s a nice departure for Jack who, after killing as characters vaguely similar to himself in movies like School of Rock has begun to stretch himself in roles that less obviously scream Jack Black. He had a big shot in serious acting last year as Carl Denham in Peter Jackson’s King Kong, and now with Nacho he returns to comedy, but of a different sort from his over-the-top rocker bit. To see him return to rocking, just wait a few months for his next 2006 movie Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny.

The real challenge for Hess and his team is in avoiding the more obvious stabs at wrestling. It’s an easy target, and while that means there’s plenty of comedic material to be mined, it also means there’s plenty of room for a lazy filmmaker to settle in for the unfunny simplicity of fart jokes. Alright a few fart jokes are fine, but a little complexity is necessary if this is going to approach any sort of comedy classic status. My fear here is that Jack Black as a Mexican wrestler is funnier in theory than in practice. Seeing Jack in spandex is pretty funny once, but how do you stretch that joke out into an entire film? There’s great potential in Nacho Libre, but Hess, White, and Black may have a tough time getting their film to fully realize it.

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