Lucha Libre or “free wrestling” is very popular in Mexico and most Latin-American countries. It is comparable to All Star Wrestling in North America with the WWF as its most famous wrestling federation. In Mexico some wrestlers like Blue Demon and Santo even got to a superhero status, starring in countless movies and always staying in character, never taking off their masks. So, there was enough heritage for this movie to make a nice story about it and it could have served as a good excuse to portray the beautiful Mexican culture and countryside. I am therefore confused as to why director/writer Hess and producer/actor Jack Black chose this particular “angle” of a Mexican friar dreaming of a career as a luchador.

The wrestling culture in Latin-America is quite an interesting phenomenon: it started as a kind of circus entertainment in village squares and town fairs, to gradually grow out to into a national craze for young and old. Luchador stars would become like masked superheroes and appear in many commercials, TV-shows and movies. Using this premises for a movie -even a comedy- would have yielded enough interesting elements to portray this culture with it’s larger-than-life characters. Some of the famous luchadores would even be buried wearing their mask, keeping up the act until the very end! Jack Black’s character Nacho, a somewhat goofy Mexican friar, has dreamt his whole life of a career as a luchador. We don’t really learn what fuels this deep desire, but he seems adamant in pursuing this strange career in order to take better care for the orphans for which he cooks in the monastery.

Throughout the movie Black’s motives remain vague as so does the movie’s storyline. The luchador culture is not really explored and merely seems to serve as a backdrop for a half-assed comedic story with a an even-assed love interest thrown into it. I still cannot figure out whether this movie was intended for kids and if it was meant to be a real comedy. The comedy is painfully absent in this flick and Black is quite annoying, as he desperately tries to work comedy with his typical schtick. It becomes all the more apparent that Black is that kind of comedian who gives a good comedy performance when he is strictly directed and aided by a strong script with sharp dialogue or in a supporting role. I liked him a lot in High Fidelity, but he was already pushing it in Shallow Hal and School of Rock. However, as the latter was clearly targeted as a kids movie, you can forgive him the watered-down performance there. In this movie, children were present, but they didn’t really play any role.

So all in all, this is a strange experiment, where the makers surely saw a lot of potential, good comedy but were betting on the wrong horse as to make it work. The same team was responsible for underground hit Napoleon Dynamite, but nowhere does it touch on that movie’s campy feel and weird universe; Napoleon Dynamite was at least funny at some times. Here, Black is weird in a not-so-funny-way, the plot and screenplay are jumbled and boring and it is not clear what this movie wants to be.

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