Nathan's Movie Collection: Nacho Libre (2006)
"They think I do not know a buttload of crap about the Gospel, but I doooo."
Note: Most of these movies have been around for a considerable amount of time, so assume there will be spoilers all throughout.
Sergio Gutiérrez Benítez was a young man from Hidalgo, Mexico, struggling with alcohol and substance abuse who tried seeking help at a Catholic church. After being sent away by a priest he believed was there to help someone like him, Benítez went to rehab and afterwards joined a seminary to become that kind of priest himself.
Benítez eventually found himself back in Mexico in 1976 where he founded an orphanage called “La Casa Hogar de los Cachorros de Fray Tormenta.” To make ends meet and keep the Cachorros from losing their Casa Hogar, Benítez started moonlighting as a lucha libre wrestler named Fray Tormenta. He was able to keep his anonymity as a priest until accidentally revealing it to another wrestler over a phone call where he let it slip that he was turning down a match to officiate a wedding. His popularity exploded from there and he continued to wrestle until his retirement in 2011, although he still wears the mask while performing his priestly duties.
It’s the kind of story begging for the cinematic treatment, which is why the life of Sergio Gutiérrez Benítez was used as the inspiration for a film about a priest running an orphanage who dons a pair of stretchy pants to save it. It was called The Man in the Golden Mask. It was a French film released in 1990 starring Jean Reno as Father Victorio, the priest slash luchador.
Then in 2006, Jared Hess, director of Napoleon Dynamite, became the next filmmaker to release a film inspired by Benítez’s/Fray Tormenta’s life story, with a screenplay Hess co-wrote with his wife Jerusha as well as Mike White who would later became famous as the creator of White Lotus. The movie starred Jack Black and was called Nacho Libre.
The first time I remember watching this one, it was with my two brothers and our grandpa. We liked Jack Black, probably from School of Rock1, and my grandpa is a big fan of wrestling, so he drove us to Blockbuster and picked up the DVD. This is exactly how it happened because it was 2006.
Back at my grandparents’ house, we sat down to watch Nacho Libre and within minutes, it was clear to everyone that it was going to be an uphill climb. Even with the low brow humor. That being said, the Hess’ movies have a very specific sense of humor and for whatever reason at that time, even as a teenager, it just didn’t work on me.
Some years later in Bible college, I was hanging out with friends talking about movies when Nacho Libre came up. Someone said it was their favorite and my knee jerk response is, “Really? That movie sucks.”
After my friends corrected me as a brother in Christ, we had a watch party and seeing it with people got the humor made me do a one-eighty. I remember kind of chuckling the first time around at the baptism scene. The second time, I was howling at how unnecessarily busy the whole scene is leading up to the sneak attack baptism. When he says, “Praise the Lord!”, everyone erupted.
After that, I watched it a number of times I’m too embarrassed to remember and it got funnier each time. When I moved to Oklahoma, it took a few months for me to get settled in, but once I’d made friends there, some had a movie night over at their house and it was Nacho Libre. Everyone there knew it beat for beat and it made me feel a little more at home.
According to my research assistant2, Jack Black was concerned about playing a Mexican character, to which Jared Hess responded by explaining that his character Ignacio was a “‘gringo,’ but born and raised in Mexico.” The explanation given in the movie is that his parents were a Scandinavian Lutheran missionary and a Mexican deacon."
“They tried to convert each other,” Nacho tells Sister Encarnación (Ana de la Reguera). “But they got married instead. Then they died.”
Most of the funny lines are less about the writing and more about the delivery. Nacho says that last sentence with a Clint Eastwood stare. Then, without looking up, he reaches over and quickly snatches the picture of his parents Encarnación is holding. It’s one of several moments where something or someone is being whipped away very quickly. One of the most famous bits to go viral is the “Get the corn out of my face!” scene. I’m stopping myself from going scene by scene and detailing all the funniest parts so we can move along.
One of the things I found out later was that the movie was cast and filmed in Oaxaca, Mexico. For about a years, I lived in Puebla with my parents about four hours away, but Oaxaca was a place we traveled to regularly. It’s clear the movie was made with the kind of attention and respect where Mexico isn’t the butt of the joke nor the people that live there. The worst I think it gets is some of the outdated luchador names, which is an issue I don’t think a film like Nacho Libre is really interested in tackling.
Even in a bad movie, Jack Black will still give a top-notch performance that makes you wish he were in a better movie. Like Nacho Libre, for example. It’s easy to assume it’s just him doing a silly voice or that he’s making fun of a Mexican accent, but that is one aspect of the performance he takes on with deadly seriousness. Down to hitting the invisible short e in front of “stinky,” it’s a committed performance. Then when he’s strutting about in his tights singing about Encarnación, there’s not an ounce of irony in what he’s doing.
Fray Tormenta’s reason for wrestling was the children, which is an important part of the character of Ignacio. The ways in which he expresses his heart for the niños alternate between hilarious and touching. When he loses his way toward the end, it’s ultimately the children that motivate him to pick up the stretchy pants once again. As a parent, it’s a message I can relate to.
When we were planning our wedding, I asked Ashley if I could sing “Encarnación” to her during the ceremony and I’ve never been shut down more swiftly.
Also written by Mike White.
Wikipedia.