Napoleon Dynamite ends summer movie season with bang
Spc. Dustin Perry
31st AdA Bde. Public Affairs
The summer movie season is winding down and with it came the usual onslaught of action flicks, big-budget thrillers and even a few hilarious comedies. Matt Damon, Will Smith, Tom Cruise, Tobey Maguire and Will Ferrell all had big hits. However, in the midst of all the robots, amnesiac hit men, mustachioed newscasters and web slinging, a different kind of leading man set quite a unique landmark: Filmdom has a new reigning nerd, and his name is Napoleon Dynamite.
Newcomer Jon Heder stars as the protagonist in the title role of director
Jared Hess’ debut film about a tall, moon boot-wearing geek with
thick glasses and a curly red hairdo trying to make it through his high
school days in rural Idaho. He lives with his older brother Kip (Aaron
Ruell), an equally clueless loser who spends his days chatting with
babes on the Internet, and their grandmother, a four-wheeler enthusiast
played by Sandy Martin.
After an accident in the sand dunes leaves granny with a broken coccyx,
Napoleon and Kip’s uncle Rico (Jon Gries) become their temporary
caretaker. Uncle Rico assumes this responsibility the only way he knows
how: by showing the boys boring videos of himself throwing footballs
past the camera (his team almost won State in 1982) and recruiting Kip
to help him sell plastic kitchenware and breast enlargement pills door-to-door.
In between receiving nonstop ridicule and alienation from his classmates,
Napoleon spends most of his spare time touting his nunchaku skills,
drawing flatulent fantasy creatures, feeding his pet llama Tina scraps
of ham, sloppily chugging cranberry juice, testing out a time machine
Kip bought online (complete with power crystals) and learning “flippin’
sweet moves” from an ancient hip-hop dance tape he finds at a
thrift store.
Rest assured, Napoleon Dynamite does have a plot, minimal as it may
be. He befriends Mexican transfer student Pedro (Efren Ramirez) and
manages his campaign to run for class president against the token popular
girl Summer (played by Hillary Duff’s sister, Haylie). There’s
even a love interest for Napoleon named Deb (Tina Majorino), a quirky
girl who wears a ponytail on the side of her head and specializes in
Glamour Shots photography and making cheap vinyl key chains.
You’ll be too busy, however, watching Heder steal every single
scene he’s in while at the same time, destroying all the clichés
of how characters like him are supposed to act. After all, any movie
nerd can have a pocket protector and fawn over Gillian Anderson, but
how many have ever stuffed tater tots in their pocket or tied fishing
line to an action figure and dragged it from a moving school bus? Add
to that Heder’s throaty, deadpan delivery of lines like “Are
you drinking 1 percent milk because you think you’re fat?”
and what you end up with is a new cinematic hero for the Star Trek-quoting,
comic book-collecting masses.
Hess’ directorial style and dialogue have drawn comparisons to
both Wes Anderson’s Rushmore and Todd Solondz’s Welcome
to the Dollhouse. But his film has indie cred coming from almost every
angle and just enough slapstick (including a hilarious cameo by Diedrich
Bader as the instructor of his own brand of martial arts, Rex Kwon Do)
to distance itself as an extremely original and entertaining movie.
If you want to see this hidden gem of a movie (and I highly recommend
you do) you’d better hurry because it’s likely to be knocked
out of theaters soon by the slew of upcoming blockbusters that, most
likely, won’t contain any tater tots or llamas.