How stupid is stupid?  Nacho Libre is pretty stupid.  Not that audiences can’t enjoy something stupid.  We do.  But this one is really hit and miss.

It will be a hit if you like Jack Black, who has been pretty funny in the past, in School of Rock and even as a creep in King Kong.  One of the troubles is that he is a calculating comedian.  You can see him working out how to win over the audience, one of those actors who can never get enough applause.  It will be a miss if you don’t like impossible farce, silly dialogue and story lines – and if wrestling is not your favourite sport.

The director made the cult hit, Napoleon Dynamite, but goes for lower common denominators for comedy.  The setting is a Mexican orphanage where Jack Black grows up, is put into a habit, belittled by the friar in charge, gets a crush on a pretty nun who comes to teach and, with the aid of a skinny friend, moonlights as Nacho Libre who builds up a following amongst the crowds at the wrestling matches.

With not much effort the producers could have checked with some church advisors to save them from making a kind of Police Academy version of orphanages, friars, nuns and the church – and even of wrestling as well.

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