Film

What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases

Napoleon Dynamite (2004)

Average user rating

3 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

For hit-hungry film distributors seeking a bargain at the annual Sundance Film Festival (where this indie gem premiered in January), this is exactly the kind of movie to set their hearts fluttering. Made for under $500,000, Hess’s debut feature has, to date, taken more than $43 million at the US box office. It’s a handsome payout, and proof that there is hope for small American filmmakers looking to compete with their big budget compatriots.

Not that any such cynical profiteering informed 25-year-old Hess’s original gameplan: to turn his hit short film, ‘Peluca’, a zero-budget, comic take on his small hometown of Preston, Idaho, into a full-length, subversive skit on the typical high-school comedy. Napoleon (Jon Heder) is our focus: a teenage boy so unattractive, so awkward, so out-of-sync, so damn wrong that he ultimately endears himself as an outlaw and fully-fledged hero. The obvious parallel is Dawn Wiener in Todd Solondz’s much superior ‘Welcome to the Dollhouse’. Like Dawn, Napoleon does himself no favours. He wears moon boots and bad T-shirts; he likes to sketch unicorns and ‘ligers’ (an imagined hybrid of a lion and a tiger); and he doesn’t know the first thing about friendship or romance. His dysfunctional family is equally bad: older brother Kip has the worst moustache in history and spends all day on internet dating sites, while Uncle Rico is a failing door-to-door salesman whose big dream is to return to 1982 and resurrect his stalled football career. It’s a cast of brilliant caricatures, and as such recalls the films of Wes Anderson, especially ‘Rushmore’.

Admittedly, much of the humour is very silly – feeding on sight gags and slapstick – and not all of it hits the mark. But there’s a serious side too. The embarrassments of school and teenage life are up there to squirm at in both shame and horror.

Author: DC

Time Out London Issue 1789: December 01-08 2004

Email Tweet Share

User reviews of this film

wasted said...

Posted on Feb 10 2009 02:20 Christian Bale VS Napoleon Dynamite... Full Length Version (Rant)
TYPE THAT TITLE ABOVE, INTO YOUTUBE SEARCH...... SO FUNNY!!!

Report as inappropriate
Magmabulle said...

Posted on Jun 08 2008 21:27 An incredibly funny high school comedy, with great characters and amazing dialogue. It is quite impossible to dislike the character Napoleon.

Report as inappropriate
Tim said...

Posted on Apr 02 2008 13:34 Love the kookiness
Ligers do actually exist

Report as inappropriate