Jared Hess, writer and director of Napoleon Dynamite brings us Nacho Libre, an equally crazy movie about equally weird people. Jack Black stars as a Mexican friar called Ignacio—Nacho is his nickname—who is not content with his life as a cook in an orphanage. In fact, the food he cooks is so bad, that one of orphans would rather have a salad than the slop that they have to eat. One day, when Nacho goes into town, he sees Ramses, a luchador—or wrestler—who has lots of money and fame, and he decides that he wants that same respect and admiration. He asks Esqueleto (Héctor Jiménez), a street urchin, to join him as his tag-team partner in order to break into the world of lucha libre. All it takes is a mask and some “stretchypants,” and they’re in business.

For those of you not familiar with the sport, lucha libre means “freestyle fighting or wrestling,” and it is extremely popular in Mexico. It is similar to American pro-wrestling but is a little more out of control, if you can imagine that. The luchadores usually wear masks, jump off the ropes and use any objects they can get their hands on as weapons. Although Nacho and his buddy aren’t very good fighters, they manage to make a living and gain some popularity, despite the fact that some of the others at the orphanage might view his actions as sinful. One of those is Sister Encarnación (Ana De La Reguera), an attractive young nun whom Nacho has the hots for; though he can’t do much about it since they’d have to renounce their vows in order to have a relationship.

The film is loaded with lots of hilarious scenes as Nacho tries to become a real fighter. One scene I found a little odd, though, is the montage in which Nacho and Esqueleto train before their first match. They perform such bizarre tactics as launching melons at their chests, wiping cow manure on their faces, throwing beehives across a field and attempting to wrestle a bull. At one point, Nacho even shoots an arrow at Esqueleto. These all make for some great sight gags, but why on earth would anyone consider these as real training exercises for a fight? Maybe it’s an attempt to make fun of the Rocky movies. It’s too weird. The strangest thing, however, is when Nacho scales the side of a mountain to eat the yolk from an eagle’s egg, thinking it will give him great power. The movie never says whether this works or not. The only payoff is that we get to see Jack Black with slime running down his face. It’s all just a little too weird for me. And I can usually handle weird.

Aside from all the silly stuff, though, I really appreciated Jack Black’s ability to make Nacho a true hero at heart, instead of just a clown. Ignacio really has to make some difficult decision as to whether he should pursue Encarnación, whether he should leave the orphanage for his wrestling career, and whether or not the orphans really mean something to him. He never quite fits in, and wrestling seems to be the one thing in life in which he belongs. That makes his decisions even harder. Nacho has a childlike quality that most of Black’s characters don’t have—i.e. Carl Denham in King Kong or Dewey Finn in School of Rock. The way he asks Sister Encarnación, “I was wondering if you would like to join me in my quarters this night... for some toast” is priceless.

You never really figure out what the good nun thinks of the wannabe fighter. You never really learn much about her at all, as a matter of fact. She tells Nacho, “My favorite color is light tan, and I love poopies [puppies], hiking and volleyball.” And that’s about it. It would have been more fun to see more personality. She denounces Nacho’s choice to wrestle, but we get the idea that she only does so because it’s right thing to do, not because doesn’t think it’s cool. But we never know for sure. I just wish there were more.

Likewise, Esqueleto, the only other main character, is somewhat of a mystery. At first, he’s an almost naked wild man living in the streets, and he mugs Nacho for a bag of chips that are supposed to be for the children. Then we learn that he’s quite educated. Nacho discovers that he’s never been baptized, and all he says is, “I don’t believe in God; I believe in science.” We never learn why, and he never explains his reasoning. That’s just the way it is. He spends most of the film as Nacho’s flunky, but doesn’t really show much of a personality of his own.

The film has much of the same humor as Napoleon Dynamite. The characters just do things. The things they do might or might not have any significance in the story, but they just do them anyway. For the most part, I find this style funny because it gives the movie a more “realistic” feel. Everything we do in real life doesn’t always necessarily have to lead up to something else. Hess has a talent for adding these insignificant moments to the story. On the other hand, it’s also frustrating because I don’t know what to pay attention to in the early parts of the movie, since I don’t know which elements will be important later on. It’s an acquired taste. You have to decide whether you like it or not.

Finally, there is a small group of people calling this movie racist. Granted, most of these people only post their frustrations on internet message boards, but the claims are still out there. Rest assured, the movie is not racist. Maybe it’s a bit stereotypical, but that the point of most farce. Many people point to the fact that the main character is played by Jack Black, a white actor. In the film Nacho explains that his mother was a Lutheran missionary from Norway and his father was a Catholic deacon from Mexico. Even though the character is half Hispanic, he’s still a citizen of Mexico, which makes him a Mexican. All of the other characters are played by Hispanics, and they all speak with the same over-enunciated accents. My point is, if you’re going to dislike the movie, dislike it for something else besides the “racism.” If racism is the only reason you don’t like it, then you’re reading too much into it.

Over all it’s a pretty good movie. Kids will probably enjoy it more than adults. There’s plenty of flatulence to go around. The violence is cartoony and there’s no bad language. The film is distributed by Nickelodeon, for goodness’ sake. It is rated PG, so it might not be suitable for the little ones. I give it three bees. I laughed a lot, but I really wanted to see more character development and more focus from the script. However, I’ll probably be first in line when the sequel comes out.