What exactly gives a film cult status? Generally a cult movie is defined as one that’s done on a small budget, stars fairly unknown actors, doesn’t have a wide release in theaters (or at all), and for reasons that can only be explained by fans becomes enormously popular within a particular group of people. “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is one of the best examples of a cult film today and still boasts a huge following despite the fact that it’s over 30 years old.
A more modern take on the cult classic is “Napoleon Dynamite,” the small-budget dream child of Jared Hess which propelled a few social outcasts into the hearts of millions. It went from being a weird little movie that not many people had heard of to an oft-quoted instant classic, particularly with high school-age kids.
Hess took the quirky, offbeat spunkiness we all loved in the “Napoleon Dynamite” characters and spun it into even weirder territory with 2009’s “Gentlemen Broncos,” a film which did dismally at the box office but which has gained its own following since.
Michael Angarano, whose big dark eyes and lovable hangdog expression would make even the harshest critic fall in love, stars as Benjamin Purvis, a young man who lives with his eccentric mother (played with brilliant flightiness by Jennifer Coolidge) and writes sci-fi stories in his free time. A weekend trip to a writing festival allows him to meet his idol, a fellow science fiction writer named Ronald Chevalier (Jemaine Clement of “Flight Of The Conchords,” in one of my most favorite roles ever) who is a judge in the festival’s writing contest.
Chevalier is hailed in the sci-fi world as a brilliant master of the written word, which gives him an inflated ego, but as we see in one hilarious scene involving a phone call from his agent, he has hit a creative brick wall. His agency is ready to let him go if he can’t come up with a better manuscript than the last one. In his desperation, he takes Benjamin’s manuscript and tweaks it just enough to make it his own.
The story in question is about a wild and hairy warrior named Bronco — based on Benjamin’s dead father — who is played with perfect gruff hilarity by Sam Rockwell. He lives in a futuristic world where yeast is of special importance and where stags and bucks can not only fly but can shoot lasers from their orifices. At once strange and funny, this story-within-a-story is carried by Rockwell, who really hits his comedic stride as Chevalier’s sassy version of Bronco.
When a local filmmaker offers to buy Benjamin’s manuscript for adaptation, Benji immediately accepts, hoping to immortalize his characters and his father’s legacy. He soon realizes, however, that allowing someone else to take liberties with your work can yield unsatisfactory results. After a humiliating film premiere, Benjamin runs out of the theater and seeks refuge in a bookstore, only to discover that his idol, Chevalier, has released his new book — and it’s a dead ringer for his own story, “Yeast Lords: The Bronco Years.”
Viewers find themselves rallying for Benjamin toward the end of the film in the hopes that he will get the acknowledgement he deserves while giving Chevalier his just desserts; in a surprising turn of events, he manages to do just that.
“Gentlemen Broncos” is definitely not for those looking for mainstream humor, but because it has that quirky sensibility “Napoleon Dynamite had,” it could be well on its way to being a cult hit.
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