Nacho Libre

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Nacho Libre

Nacho Libre movie poster
Directed by Jared Hess
Produced by Jack Black
David Klawans
Julia Pistor
Mike White
Written by Jared Hess
Jerusha Hess
Mike White
Starring Jack Black
Music by Beck
Danny Elfman
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date(s) June 16, 2006
Running time 92 minutes
Language English
Budget $25 million
IMDb profile

Nacho Libre is an American comedy film that was released on June 16, 2006, by Paramount Pictures, though it was released in select theaters earlier. The script is written by Jared Hess, Jerusha Hess, and Mike White. It was loosely based on the story of Fray Tormenta ("Friar Storm"), aka Rev. Sergio Gutierrez Benitez, a real-life Mexican Catholic priest who had a 23-year career as a masked luchador. He competed in order to support the orphanage he directed. The producers are Jack Black, David Klawans, Julia Pistor, and Mike White. The release date was originally set to be May 2006, but was changed by Paramount to avoid competition from Fox's X-Men: The Last Stand and one of Paramount's other films, Mission: Impossible III. It was then placed between the releases of Disney/Pixar's Cars (June 9) and Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures' Superman Returns (June 28). The film was rated PG by the MPAA for "rough action and crude humor, including dialogue." It was released on DVD on October 24, 2006. [1]

Contents

[edit] Plot

Paramount Pictures' precis of the Nacho Libre story is as follows:

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Ignacio (Jack Black) is a holy man without skills. After growing up as an orphan in a Mexican monastery, he is now a grown man and the monastery’s cook, but doesn’t fit in and is often looked down upon. Ignacio, all his life, has dreamed of becoming a luchador, but since it was forbidden by the monestary, his dream was constantly crushed. Ignacio (also known as Nacho) cares deeply for the orphans he feeds, but his food is terrible – mostly, if you ask him, as a result of his terrible ingredients. He realizes that he must hatch a plan to make money to buy better food for “the young orphans, who have nothing” (ideally, in doing so, also impressing the lovely Sister Encarnación). When Nacho is struck by the idea to earn money as a Lucha Libre wrestler, he teams with his rail-thin, unconventional partner Stephen, a.k.a. Esqueleto (the Skeleton), Nacho feels for the first time in his life that he has something to fight for and a place where he belongs. But Nacho does not do very well at wrestling, and he loses his match. To his surprise, however, an announcer pays them money, saying that the crowd loves them. At every subsequent match, Nacho and Steven lose. Nacho gets fed up and looks for help. Steven brings him to find eagle eggs, rumored by a man that they will give him mystical powers. He swallows the yolk, but he still loses. He prays to God and starts to fight for the orphans, ultimately getting second place in a free-for-all match, the winner of whom gets to challenge Ramses, the top luchador. Though he loses, Steven informs him that Silencio, the winner, will not be fighting Ramses, due to an injury (Steven actually uses Ignacio's "motor car" to run over Silencio's toes) Nacho prepares for his fight and, against all odds, wins! The movie ends with Ignacio and Sister Encarnación taking the kids on a field trip. Sister gives Nacho a congratulatory thumbs-up, who gives off a slightly awkward smile in return.

[edit] Podcast

During the filming, Jack Black began doing a production diary video podcast called Jack Black's Nacho Libre Confessional. In every episode, Jack is filmed with a hand-held camera inside his trailer. He introduces the viewer to the cast and set, and gives a brief "nacho" description of what he has been up to. This series was also available for free, to subscribers of Xbox Live via the Xbox 360's Marketplace service.

Each episode of the podcast begins and ends with an intro/outro featuring Beck's song "E-Pro" from the album Guero. This is likely a reference to the fact that Nacho is himself a güero or "white boy" due to his half-Scandinavian heritage, as explained by Jack whilst having his chest waxed in Episode 3 of the podcast.

[edit] Main cast

[edit] Reviews and reaction

Reviews of the film were generally mixed.

According to Roger Ebert, "It takes some doing to make a Jack Black comedy that doesn't work, but Nacho Libre does it."

However, the Hollywood Reporter was very positive about it, calling it, "One of the most inspired comedies in ages".

Michael Medved gave the film two and a half stars (out of four) calling it, "Amusing, but resistible." and adding that, "Director Jared Hess [employs] the same off-beat humor that made his Napoleon Dynamite a cult hit"[1].

The film currently has a "rotten" 37% rating at RottenTomatoes (as of August 24, 2006)[2].

The film has done well commercially. On its opening weekend in the U.S. Nacho Libre earned $28.3 million, second only to Cars for that weekend. The total domestic box office for the film stands at $80.2 million. [2]

[edit] Music

Director Jared Hess originally wanted musical artist Beck to be behind the soundtrack for the film. Beck, being a fan of Hess, accepted. However, Paramount Pictures didn't think Beck's style fit the movie, and decided to try to get composer Danny Elfman to replace him. Elfman then wrote a full score and recorded it in May 2006.[3] But then, only about 2/3 of Elfman's score ended up in the movie.

Due to how much of Elfman's music filled the film, Elfman's representatives asked that Elfman be the only person credited for Nacho Libre's score. Hess caught wind of this and would not allow the studio to remove Beck from the credits. When finding that he wouldn't have the only music credit, Elfman told Paramount to remove his name from the film. An agreement was eventually reached where both Beck and Elfman were credited for their respective parts of the score. [4]

The track listing for the official soundtrack to Nacho Libre[5] The soundtrack was released October 24th, 2006

  1. Hombre Religioso (Religious Man) - Mister Loco
  2. "A Nice Pile-Drive To The Face" - Nacho (Dialog)
  3. Move, Move, Move - Alan Hawkshaw & Alan Parker
  4. Papas - Mister Loco
  5. Singing At The Party - Jack Black with Ismael Garcia Ruiz Y Su Trio
  6. Ramses Suite - Danny Elfman
  7. "All The Orphans In The World" - Nacho & Esqueleto (Dialog)
  8. There Is No Place In This World For Me - Beck
  9. "I'm Serious" - Nacho (Dialog)
  10. 10,000 Pesos - Beck
  11. Irene - Caetano Veleso
  12. Pump A Jam (Ramses) - Cholotronic
  13. Black Is Black - Eddie Santiago
  14. Half Forgotten Daydreams - John Cameron
  15. Encarnación - Jack Black
  16. Tender Beasts Of The Spangled Night - Beck
  17. Saint Behind The Glass - Los Lobos
  18. "Beneath The Clothes We Find The Man..." - Nacho (Dialog)
  19. Forbidden Nectar - Jack Black & Mucho Macho Acapulco
Jack Black in a scene of the film
Enlarge
Jack Black in a scene of the film

[edit] Collaboration with professional wrestling

Before the release of the movie, World Wrestling Entertainment added Nacho to the SmackDown! brand roster on their website. Whether this was simply promotion for the movie or if Jack Black will be making an appearance on the show remains to be announced or seen. After a month, Nacho's profile was removed from the website.

Also at the June 20, 2006, edition on ECW's television show, Black's character was parodied with "Macho Libre". Macho Libre was a wrestler dressed like Ignacio, only speaking in "Macho Man" Randy Savage's voice with a Hispanic accent. Macho Libre was attacked by former 5-time ECW Champion The Sandman.

[edit] Trivia

  • Nacho lost every wrestling match except for the one against Ramses
  • The plot of the film is also similar to that of the character King from the Tekken series of video games. This is to be expected since both the movie and the Tekken character were based on the same real-life wrestler, Fray Tormenta.
  • Jack Black trained with a real luchador prior to filming.
  • Many fans of Jared Hess's film Napoleon Dynamite have called Nacho Libre "Napoleon Dynamite + Lucha Libre", or a "Spanish Napoleon Dynamite". Incidentally, Paramount Pictures, the distributors of Nacho Libre, released Napoleon Dynamite outside the US.
  • Lucha Libre - wrestling is more accurately translated as free fighting. The term "libre" (free) comes from "libertad" which means freedom (from the Latin libris which English derived into the word liberty). In a way the title may be called Nacho is Free or Free Nacho(s).
  • There are many wrestling in-jokes spread throughout the movie, such as Nacho hitting Esqueleto with a bass, ala Jeff Jarrett.
  • The film's "theme song", played during the opening credits and several times thereafter, is "Religious Man", written and recorded in 1975 by the Mexican band Mister Loco.
  • According to an interview with Jack Black, the movie takes place in the early 1970s.[citation needed]
  • Jack Black trained in New Japan Pro Wrestling's Los Angeles Dojo to hone his wrestling skills in preparation for the movie.
  • Professional wrestler Human Tornado appears in the movie as "El Snowflake"
  • The costume that Nacho uses when wrestling looks nearly identical to the action figure that is thrown out of the bus in the beginning of Napoleon Dynamite.
  • Mexican Rules: There are three mistakes/misinterpretations of how wrestling is ruled in Mexico. Firstly, when Nacho loses his first fight the three second count is not shown (it appears he loses with a flying kick). When Nacho beats Ramses the count takes place outside the ring. Normally when both fighters are outside the ring a 20 second count begins for both of them to return to the ring. Also, The battle royal is more for the movie than accurate within the rules, as Nacho is not pinned after the Tombstone Piledriver, or, if the rules were to throw your opponents out of the ring to win (like the other combatants), Nacho was not. There was no stipulation of having lost, or that he even came in 2nd place like later revealed in the film. It should also be noted that in Mexico, the Tombstone Piledriver is considered an illegal move.
  • The lock that Nacho uses to win in the end is called La Magistral cradle.
  • The background music at the wrestling promoter's party is "Black is Black."
  • Jack Black's toast in the toast scene actually gets larger as the scene goes on.
  • Ramses applies chapstick to his lips (ala Napoleon Dynamite) before his match with Nacho.
  • In one scene, Nacho and Esqueleto are collecting items for Nacho's "Stretchy Pants," and they grab some rocks out of the bottom of a fish tank. This is an obvious spoof of a scene from "The Graduate" where Ben Braddock grabs his keys out of the bottom of a fish tank.
  • It might be worth noting that "Ignacio" the character's real name is shared by Ingacio Annay, who created nachos, and was also known by the nickname of "Nacho", as is to be expected due to the fact that "Nacho" is a common nickname for Ignacios similar to shortening Nicholas to Nick. (like Jack Black's character's wrestling name is "Nacho").

[edit] Moves Portrayed

When Nacho is fighting Satan's Cavemen, Chancho turns on and watchs it on the tv, wearing a red shirt. When Nacho is about to get his mask ripped off, Chancho stands to block the tv with a white, sleeveless shirt on.

[edit] Interviews

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Read Michael Medved's Full Review Score of 2.5/4 Stars
  2. ^ See Nacho Libre on Rotten Tomatoes

[edit] External links


Nickelodeon Movies
Barnyard • Charlotte's Web • Clockstoppers • Good Burger • Harriet the Spy • Hey Arnold!: The Movie • Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius • Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events • Mad Hot Ballroom • Nacho Libre • Rugrats Go Wild! • Rugrats in Paris: The Movie • The Rugrats Movie • Snow Day • The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie • The Wild Thornberrys Movie • Yours, Mine and Ours
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