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Gentlemen Broncos

Gentlemen Broncos (2009)

tomatometer

18

Average Rating: 3.7/10
Reviews Counted: 79
Fresh: 14 | Rotten: 65

Unselfconsciously juvenile and overwhelmingly quirky, Gentlemen Broncos offers a lot of potty humor but isn't terribly funny.

8

Average Rating: 3/10
Critic Reviews: 24
Fresh: 2 | Rotten: 22

Unselfconsciously juvenile and overwhelmingly quirky, Gentlemen Broncos offers a lot of potty humor but isn't terribly funny.

audience

38

liked it
Average Rating: 2.8/5
User Ratings: 19,826

My Rating

Movie Info

Aspiring sci-fi author and awkward home-school student Benjamin is over the moon when he attends a writing camp where he gets to meet his hero, writer Ronald Chevalier. Unfortunately, the pompous hero to the geeks is fresh out of ideas, and instead of reading Benjamin's manuscript - a high-adventure tale called Yeast Lords - and giving the student some notes, Chevalier steals the story and uses it for his next book. Now if he ever wants to help his mom jumpstart her business as a modest lingerie

PG-13, 1 hr. 30 min.

Comedy

Jared Hess, Jerusha Hess

Mar 2, 2010

Fox Searchlight Pictures

Cast

All Critics (79) | Top Critics (24) | Fresh (15) | Rotten (66) | DVD (4)

At one level, it is pretty bad. Then, on the other level, it is downright horrible. Unless you're an entertainment masochist, neither is very much fun.

November 25, 2009 Full Review Source: Arizona Republic | Comment
Arizona Republic
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Don't pay money to see it, don't waste your time if it comes on cable; you might not even want to bother reading the rest of this review.

November 13, 2009 Full Review Source: Detroit News | Comment (1)
Detroit News
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A tedious and unfocused concoction involving science fiction, plagiarism and the nightgown industry.

November 12, 2009 Full Review Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune | Comment
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Where do you go after rocket-propelled deer statuary, cyclops warriors in golf carts, and Mike White with a dubbed Irish accent?

November 12, 2009 Full Review Source: Philadelphia Inquirer | Comment
Philadelphia Inquirer
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Jared Hess, who made Napoleon Dynamite, a film I admit I didn't get, has made a film I don't even begin to get.

November 12, 2009 Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times | Comment
Chicago Sun-Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

There's a lesson behind Gentlemen Broncos, the new film from director Jared Hess: Don't try to mock above your talent level.

November 6, 2009 Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | Comment
Globe and Mail
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Rockwell is the film's only consistently amusing presence.

July 16, 2010 Full Review Source: Lessons of Darkness | Comment
Lessons of Darkness

Classic underdog vs smug establishment stuff, you might think. But it's all played out in puke-slathered anti-comedy sketches better suited to no-budget YouTube videos than a multimillion-dollar film.

May 6, 2010 Full Review Source: Total Film | Comment
Total Film

This deliberately amateurish, self-indulgent effort manages to be odd while rarely remembering to be funny.

May 3, 2010 Full Review Source: Daily Express | Comment
Daily Express

The presence of Flight of the Conchords star Jemaine Clement is the main point of interest in this so-so comedy...

May 3, 2010 Full Review Source: Scotsman | Comment

Runs out of ideas after 20 minutes.

April 30, 2010 Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | Comment (1)
Guardian [UK]

Gentlemen Broncos is a movie that sets out to be so bad it's good, like an Edward D. Wood movie. But it ends up so slow-paced, unfunny and supercilious that it's just mind-numbingly terrible.

April 30, 2010 Full Review Source: Daily Mail [UK] | Comment
Daily Mail [UK]

Maybe it's time for Hess to go back to Napoleon Dynamite for a sequel. Although, on second thoughts, perhaps he should leave well alone.

April 30, 2010 Full Review Source: Daily Mirror [UK] | Comment
Daily Mirror [UK]

Veers from hilarious to unwatchable.

April 30, 2010 Comment
Little White Lies

It's all an excuse for Hess to populate his small-town America with a series of off-the-scale oddballs and gross-out humour. The whole premise would be far better if it didn't seem quite so self-indulgent.

April 30, 2010 Full Review Source: Sun Online | Comment
Sun Online

The film-within-a-film starring Sam Rockwell tanks quite badly, but Hess's affection for fantasy kitsch shines through brightly enough to generate real feeling.

April 29, 2010 Full Review Source: Daily Telegraph | Comment
Daily Telegraph

This latest from writer-director Jared Hess is another unsavoury stew of kitsch juvenilia that furthers the rot that set in between his first two films...

April 29, 2010 Full Review Source: Time Out | Comment

I feel it is my duty to warn fans of Jared Hess's teen comedy Napoleon Dynamite that they will find nothing to please them here.

April 29, 2010 Full Review Source: Financial Times | Comments (2)
Financial Times

Hess once again trains his camera on misfit adolescents, mocking the obsessions of sci-fi geeks with genuine affection and gentle humour that leads to an unsurprisingly heart-warming pay-off.

April 29, 2010 Full Review Source: Radio Times | Comment
Radio Times

Slight and occasionally clunking, it wins through by its sheer good nature and some particularly strong playing.

April 29, 2010 Full Review Source: Sky Movies | Comment
Sky Movies

A cult classic in the making, thanks to some wonderful dialogue and a pair of terrific comic performances from Jemaine Clement and Sam Rockwell.

April 28, 2010 Full Review Source: ViewLondon | Comment
ViewLondon

It's difficult to pick up on a majority of the nightmarish qualities that were promised in the initial wave of response.

March 15, 2010 Full Review Source: DVDTalk.com | Comment
DVDTalk.com

You can't root for [the characters] while laughing at the work they hold dear -- it just doesn't go both ways.

March 12, 2010 Full Review Source: ReelTalk Movie Reviews | Comment
ReelTalk Movie Reviews

The question isn't why was Gentlemen Broncos abruptly pulled from theaters. How in the world did the movie even get that far?

March 10, 2010 Full Review Source: LarsenOnFilm | Comment
LarsenOnFilm
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Gentlemen Broncos

This is by the creator of "Napoleon Dynamite", and if you love that movie, then you will love this movie. Much of the same quiet, off-beat dry humor. It's about a kid who writes a sci-fi story, and a famous author steals his story. Pretty simple, but very weird and a lot of it makes no sense. The sci-fi scenes that

July 8, 2011
Everett Johnson

Super Reviewer

A successful pulp author who's run out of ideas steals a teen author's sci-fi novella. The beyond-offbeat tone, which might be characterized as "nerd grotesque," is uneven and takes some serious getting used to, but the movie is never boring; Jemaine Clement's often hilarious performance as the pompous Dr. Chevalier

December 12, 2010
366weirdmovies
Greg S

Super Reviewer

    1. Bronco/Brutus: You sole my nads Denis!
    – Submitted by Tu L (2 months ago)
    1. Ronald Chevalier: And finally we have a young-ling trying to penetrate the secrets of the human mind. You won't do it like that young-ling...
    – Submitted by Mitchell L (6 months ago)
    1. Dusty: Don't worry Vania, your brother loves you.
    2. Lonnie Donaho: He was the chosen one! He was born with flesh pockets.
    – Submitted by Sean L (8 months ago)
    1. Bronco/Brutus: It's a friendship stone. Let's blow on it.
    – Submitted by daron s (9 months ago)

Latest News for Gentlemen Broncos

October 29, 2009:
Critics Consensus: This Is It Is Certified Fresh
This week at the movies brings only one wide release: the hotly-anticipated performance documentary...

October 29, 2009:
Jared Hess Draws on Real Life for Gentlemen Broncos
Critics may not get Jared Hess' "Gentlemen Broncos" -- heck, his own grandmother doesn't think his...

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