Check Out the Trailer

When I first heard the premise for this film I was very excited. With Jack Black (KING KONG) playing a monk who dreams of becoming a luchador (Mexican masked pro-wrestler), I couldn’t wait.

However, I always try to keep my expectation on any film grounded. Especially when I felt director Jared Hess’s last effort, NAPOLEON DYNAMITE was patchy. However, Hess and his wife Jerusha wrote the screenplay along with Mike White, who I have come to really like from his previous work like SCHOOL OF ROCK and THE GOOD GIRL. I’m glad to report that the film was better than I expected.

Ignacio (Black) is an orphan raised by the fellow monks to become a priest. However, ever since he was a child, he has dreamed of wrestling under the moniker, Nacho. Spurring Ignacio to follow his dreams is the arrival of the beautiful Sister Encarnación (Ana de la Reguera, Mexican telenovela star), who also catches the eye of the mean priest Guillermo (Richard Montoya, ENCINO MAN). Nacho not only wants to impress Encarnación, but also wants to prove to the other priests that he is worth more than being their slave.

Nacho teams up with the homeless young man Esqueleto (Héctor Jiménez), but they never win. Yet, they do make more money then they have ever seen before, allowing Nacho to give the orphans more then they have ever had before. Yet, the ego of top wrestlers like Ramses (Cesar Gonzalez, pro wrestler King Silver) seems to be rubbing off on Nacho, who starts to lose focus of what he’s fighting for.

The humor is the silly cartoony variety and to its benefit holds this tone for the entire running time. The film does have heart, but it never sinks into sentimentality at the end. Black was born to play this role. His timing is excellent, conjuring laughs out of thin air. He said that for his accent he thought of the drama in Ricardo Montalban’s STAR TREK: WRATH OF KHAN performance for inspiration. Complimenting Black, Jiménez gives a subtle, low-key performance that is the perfect counter to Nacho’s over-the-top bravado. Reguera is gorgeous and the film has fun with deifying her for laughs.

The only missteps are when the filmmakers go for the easy crude humor. Poo and farts are only funny in context. The scatology will make mature adults cringe and only elicit laughs from the PG crowd. As a fan of wrestling, the film gets the grandness right. In the end, the film has a lot of laughs, even more than one sees in the trailer, which is rare for comedies today. Nachooooo delivers a dropkick of fun, despite its awkward moments.