Gentlemen Broncos is the story of a young man, Benjamin (Michael Angarano) an aspiring science fiction writer. To hone his skills, he attends a writer’s camp. He has been working on a novel, humbly penned “Yeast Lords”. The main character of his eccentric novel is Bronco (Sam Rockwell). Benjamin’s mother Judith (Jennifer Coolidge) is his biggest fan and has also home schooled Benjamin his whole life.While venturing out to his author’s camp, he encounters two new creative thinkers Tabatha (Halley Feiffer) and Lonnie (Hector Jiminez). Tabatha writes French novels, and Lonnie is a producer/director of movies and trailers.
When they arrive at camp, Tabatha asks to read Benjamin’s story “Yeast Lords” and seemingly gets turned off by it immediately. She has low expectations of Benjamin’s overall success. But Benjamin is thrilled to discover his idol, Dr. Chevalier (Jemaine Clement) will be a guest speaker at the camp. The doctor also announces he will be gathering samples of the student’s writing – the winner will have their story published and sold in book stores across the United States. Benjamin finds out rapidly that idols aren’t always what you expect in the flesh – he is underwhelmed and a little disgusted. Still, Benjamin does turn in his work, “Yeast Lords”.
Chevalier is not only a self-important prick, he is a failure as a writer, and his publishers are putting pressure on him to produce something good . . . or he is off their gravy train. Fortune favors the fool; though, and Chevalier rips through the submissions and finds Benjamin’s Opus – “Yeast Lords” – and he can’t put it down.
Benjamin leaves camp to find his mother has assigned him a “Guardian Angel” from church, his name is Dusty (Mike White) and is a REAL piece of work. Dusty has his own blow dart gun and he dips the darts in a mixture of rat poison and his own feces! With all this excitement, even more good news is coming Ben’s way as his friends from camp let him know they want to shoot his novel into a film – a trailer is in the works.
Meanwhile Chevalier has reworded and changed “Yeast Lords” to be more suitable for his liking; changing Bronco’s name to Brutus, and also making Brutus a Transvestite. (Sam Rockwell was hysterical when playing Brutus) Benjamin learns while filming the trailer that Lonnie has come into some money and will pay $500 for the rights to “Yeast Lords”. Benjamin quickly agrees and they begin filming with Dusty playing Bronco.
What happens next is fairly obvious, Chevalier is eventually confronted when his new novel “The Chronicles of Brutus and Balzaak” is revealed and Benjamin recognizes it right away – as “Yeast Lords”. The film picks up and just keeps going into a frenzied crescendo at this point. All things come to a head, as Benjamin has to reclaim his idea – his idol has betrayed him. What will he do? What would you do?
This movie was very funny, and very well done. The fact that it was written and directed by the same guys who did Napoleon Dynamite might give it a little bit of an audience. I will warn you this has similarities to Napoleon Dynamite, but all in all is not really the same. The performances given by all were really well done, but the performance of Sam Rockwell was GENIUS!!!! He really made a decent movie that much better and that much funnier.
I suggest this movie for anyone who has ever read an Issac Asimov novel or just enjoys science fiction. This movie is not life changing or even remotely close, but the characters do grow on you, and it does a good job of making you feel for Benjamin. I say if you’re looking for a movie and a few good laughs, check this out, cause it is well worth the price that you’ll pay to see it!
