IMDB | Trailer | Fall 2009

Benjamin (Michael Angarano), home-schooled by his eccentric mother (Jennifer Coolidge), is a loveable loner whose passion for writing leads him on an offbeat and hilarious journey as his story first gets ripped off by the legendary fantasy novelist, Ronald Chevalier (Jemaine Clement) and then is adapted into a disastrous movie by the small town’s most prolific homespun filmmaker.

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Buzz I've heard hasn't been very good.

The trailer looks funny though.

Could be good. As others have pointed out elsewhere, the plot is kind of a rip-off of Big Fat Liar and the trailer is really, really, really pushing the whole Napoleon Dynamite thing and trying to make it all extra quirktastic, but to Jemaine Clement.

Saw this yesterday and it seems like the buzz is right. To describe this movie in one word: lifeless. The Hesses cram a ton of quirk into each character and although some of the details in the story are cribbed from their life, it feels terribly artificial. Napoleon Dynamite may be unrealistic, but Gentlemen Broncos feels like a diorama. There are several exceptions: almost anytime Clement or Rockwell are on screen you start seeing sparks, and the final 15-20 minutes almost (lamost) make up for the rest of the film. You may laugh, but you'll endure long stretches of silence to get there.

I wasn't a big fan of Dynamite the first time I saw it, but subsequent viewings changed my mind. I can't say that that will happen with this film.

Saw this yesterday and hated it. I don't know how they managed to make Jemaine Clement unfunny and uninteresting but they did it. Michael Angarano comes off even worse. I can't remember a less interesting protagonist in a film. They gave him absolutely nothing to do the whole time. He barely even comments on the situations that are happening around him. You could have replaced him with a 2x4 and it would have made little difference. The resolution is also one of the laziest I've ever seen in a movie.

I love Sam Rockwell, but this looks like shit.