Tom's Corner:
Gentlemen Broncos
(2010, Jared Hess – Director)
My lovely and talented wife, who is an attorney, tells me I need to preempt this review for some legal mumbo jumbo. Apparently it's 'for my own good.' Without further ado, the legalese!
DISCLAIMER: We at One Way or Another Productions LLC are not advocating or encouraging anyone to go & break the law. Tom is using a literary device known as “hyperbole”—if you don't know what this means, go look it up. If you or your child decides to commit a crime because of anything Tom writes, then you need to either stop doing everything the media tells you OR stop using film & television characters to babysit your child.
To any child that tells his/her parent to stop blaming the media for society's downfall, take heart that you will go on to do great things & have redeemed my personal hope in society's future. For any parent who is dumb enough to let their children read these reviews, I have to say “What the [bleep] is wrong with you?”
I don't like to bandy about the phrase “most worthless piece of bothersome nigh unsalvageable shit I've ever seen in my life” but this easily falls into the top 5. How I sat through the entire thing I'll never know, but I think it speaks to my intestinal fortitude. From the creators of “Napoleon Dynamite” comes yet another piece of unwatchable excrement. Come with us as we journey into a world that by all rights shouldn't exist. This is the world of “Gentlemen Broncos”....
The movie takes place in an unnamed small town in Utah. The residents of this town appear mostly to be inbred morons with less sense than your average houseplant. If this place really existed, I'd assume it was the result of some government experiment from the 50's aimed to 'make the Commies stupid,' and had Nixon beaten Kennedy, it would've been used. Before I get into the characters or what passes (and painfully, at that, like a kidney stone) for a plot, I want to note that I have no problems with the actors. I think they made the best from the shit they were handed. Unfortunately, as the old saying goes, you just can't polish a turd. Plot holes abound, and two scenes were so deliberately gross and unnecessary I had to look away for a bit. I usually don't give away too much of the plot, but I truly do not give two shits about this movie. I am trying to save you from an hour and a half of optical rape here, people! If I save you from seeing it, it's good karma for me.
We'll start with our lead character, home schooled teenager Benjamin Purvis. Yeah, he's your stereotypical home schooled kid: awkward and introverted. His father, who by the looks of his picture and the knife hugging up to the frame was an insane mountain man who dragged young women to his woodsy hideaway if they 'had a purty mouth,' has been dead for many years, and Benjamin has no male role model (a fact that will become blindingly obvious as the movie progresses at an excruciating pace). His parental figure (and I would assume teacher, though I see NO WAY that this woman could teach a dog to sit, let ALONE educate a child) is his mother, Judith, who designs awful clothing that Peggy Bundy wouldn't wear. Anyway, Benjy-boy attends a writers workshop (which is named after the slack jawed yokel from “The Simpsons”) and meets Tabatha and her friend, Lonnie Donaho. Lonnie is apparently some sort of an idiot savant who excels in making terrible films, and Tabatha is a wanna-be writer and actress in Lonnie's horrid crap-fests. There, Benjamin attends a workshop held by his favorite writer, Ronald Chevalier, who is somehow acclaimed in his field. While I was not able to read any of his fiction, as this was a movie, all evidence points to it being science-fictional misogyny.
A small digression, dear reader. I have read many books, and in my tenure as an information & literacy specialist, have ordered and recommended many more. I tend to view fiction through a jaded lens. It is my opinion that 85% of all fiction, in any genre, is complete and utter crap. This movie highlights what I consider to be the most crap-filled genre, science fiction. As anyone in my field could tell you, finding good sci-fi is like finding a virgin in an L.A. nightclub. You know there's got to be one or two, but you're too afraid to check for fear of a fatal disease. End digression.
Chevalier's company has a contest wherein they will publish the best work. Chevalier, after taking out his impotent rage on the manuscripts, chances across Benjamin's and reads it. He decides that it is plagiarism time and changes the characters EVER so slightly. The book, of course, is a bestseller.
PLOT HOLE!!!!
How would Benjamin NOT find out that his FAVORITE author put out a new book and not read it immediately, since he is shown to be a huge fan? I would like to pose this one to the writer, since facing it early on would actually make the film interesting.
Benjamin, unaware of this, sells the rights to film his book to Lonnie for 500 bucks! Lonnie stars as the female lead. As I do love the English and their humor, I find cross dressing hilarious. When Lonnie does it, not so much. Starring in this film is Dusty, Benjamin's “guardian angel,” who his mom recruited from church to attempt to give her son a male role model. What a great picker she is. He looks like a former hair band member who did way too many drugs and is now operating on maybe half strength when it comes to brain cells. As expected, the movie sucks. A shitty movie within a shitty movie! Wow! Tabatha, pretty much out of left field, decides she likes Benjamin and kisses him after he vomits upon seeing a trailer he stars in for one of Lonnie's other movies. Yes, this is as disgusting as it sounds, if not more so. Then, Benjamin finds out about the book.
Later, the problem of the plagiarism is solved via deus ex machina, which our friends at Wikipedia define as: "a plot device whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new character, ability, or object." Throw that one around at cocktail parties.
In closing I urge all of you to hunt down the men responsible for this film and keep them from putting ANYTHING on celluloid ever again. Please, use whatever means you deem necessary. Your eyes, and mine, will thank you.
My lovely and talented wife, who is an attorney, tells me I need to preempt this review for some legal mumbo jumbo. Apparently it's 'for my own good.' Without further ado, the legalese!
DISCLAIMER: We at One Way or Another Productions LLC are not advocating or encouraging anyone to go & break the law. Tom is using a literary device known as “hyperbole”—if you don't know what this means, go look it up. If you or your child decides to commit a crime because of anything Tom writes, then you need to either stop doing everything the media tells you OR stop using film & television characters to babysit your child.
To any child that tells his/her parent to stop blaming the media for society's downfall, take heart that you will go on to do great things & have redeemed my personal hope in society's future. For any parent who is dumb enough to let their children read these reviews, I have to say “What the [bleep] is wrong with you?”
I don't like to bandy about the phrase “most worthless piece of bothersome nigh unsalvageable shit I've ever seen in my life” but this easily falls into the top 5. How I sat through the entire thing I'll never know, but I think it speaks to my intestinal fortitude. From the creators of “Napoleon Dynamite” comes yet another piece of unwatchable excrement. Come with us as we journey into a world that by all rights shouldn't exist. This is the world of “Gentlemen Broncos”....
The movie takes place in an unnamed small town in Utah. The residents of this town appear mostly to be inbred morons with less sense than your average houseplant. If this place really existed, I'd assume it was the result of some government experiment from the 50's aimed to 'make the Commies stupid,' and had Nixon beaten Kennedy, it would've been used. Before I get into the characters or what passes (and painfully, at that, like a kidney stone) for a plot, I want to note that I have no problems with the actors. I think they made the best from the shit they were handed. Unfortunately, as the old saying goes, you just can't polish a turd. Plot holes abound, and two scenes were so deliberately gross and unnecessary I had to look away for a bit. I usually don't give away too much of the plot, but I truly do not give two shits about this movie. I am trying to save you from an hour and a half of optical rape here, people! If I save you from seeing it, it's good karma for me.We'll start with our lead character, home schooled teenager Benjamin Purvis. Yeah, he's your stereotypical home schooled kid: awkward and introverted. His father, who by the looks of his picture and the knife hugging up to the frame was an insane mountain man who dragged young women to his woodsy hideaway if they 'had a purty mouth,' has been dead for many years, and Benjamin has no male role model (a fact that will become blindingly obvious as the movie progresses at an excruciating pace). His parental figure (and I would assume teacher, though I see NO WAY that this woman could teach a dog to sit, let ALONE educate a child) is his mother, Judith, who designs awful clothing that Peggy Bundy wouldn't wear. Anyway, Benjy-boy attends a writers workshop (which is named after the slack jawed yokel from “The Simpsons”) and meets Tabatha and her friend, Lonnie Donaho. Lonnie is apparently some sort of an idiot savant who excels in making terrible films, and Tabatha is a wanna-be writer and actress in Lonnie's horrid crap-fests. There, Benjamin attends a workshop held by his favorite writer, Ronald Chevalier, who is somehow acclaimed in his field. While I was not able to read any of his fiction, as this was a movie, all evidence points to it being science-fictional misogyny.
A small digression, dear reader. I have read many books, and in my tenure as an information & literacy specialist, have ordered and recommended many more. I tend to view fiction through a jaded lens. It is my opinion that 85% of all fiction, in any genre, is complete and utter crap. This movie highlights what I consider to be the most crap-filled genre, science fiction. As anyone in my field could tell you, finding good sci-fi is like finding a virgin in an L.A. nightclub. You know there's got to be one or two, but you're too afraid to check for fear of a fatal disease. End digression.
Chevalier's company has a contest wherein they will publish the best work. Chevalier, after taking out his impotent rage on the manuscripts, chances across Benjamin's and reads it. He decides that it is plagiarism time and changes the characters EVER so slightly. The book, of course, is a bestseller.
PLOT HOLE!!!!
How would Benjamin NOT find out that his FAVORITE author put out a new book and not read it immediately, since he is shown to be a huge fan? I would like to pose this one to the writer, since facing it early on would actually make the film interesting.
Benjamin, unaware of this, sells the rights to film his book to Lonnie for 500 bucks! Lonnie stars as the female lead. As I do love the English and their humor, I find cross dressing hilarious. When Lonnie does it, not so much. Starring in this film is Dusty, Benjamin's “guardian angel,” who his mom recruited from church to attempt to give her son a male role model. What a great picker she is. He looks like a former hair band member who did way too many drugs and is now operating on maybe half strength when it comes to brain cells. As expected, the movie sucks. A shitty movie within a shitty movie! Wow! Tabatha, pretty much out of left field, decides she likes Benjamin and kisses him after he vomits upon seeing a trailer he stars in for one of Lonnie's other movies. Yes, this is as disgusting as it sounds, if not more so. Then, Benjamin finds out about the book.
Later, the problem of the plagiarism is solved via deus ex machina, which our friends at Wikipedia define as: "a plot device whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new character, ability, or object." Throw that one around at cocktail parties.
In closing I urge all of you to hunt down the men responsible for this film and keep them from putting ANYTHING on celluloid ever again. Please, use whatever means you deem necessary. Your eyes, and mine, will thank you.
- Tom Trombley
No comments:
Post a Comment