Ready to Rent Ready to Rent (February 11, 2005)

Napoleon Dynamite

Paramount Home Video VHS & DVD

1 hr 22 mins

Director: Jared Hess

Don't be alarmed if you find your teenager saying things like "Tina come get some ham" and "I guess I'm like the best drawer that I know" with a half-baked, defensive attitude in their voices. They are only quoting the film phenomenon that has actually grown in popularity since its limited summer release: the one and only "Napoleon Dynamite," one of my favorite films from 2004.

What makes this film so great is the familiar: There is a "Napoleon Dynamite" (or several) in every class. Here he comes in the guise of a 6-foot, curly-red-haired teenager whose drooping eyes are framed by his mammoth spectacles and whose wardrobe includes a uniformed pairing of horse-themed T-shirts (preferably Pegasus) and '80s-style cargo pants whose pockets are perfect for storing Tater Tots. What crowns Napoleon's cool/uncool stature is the combination of the overly defensive and supremely egotistical, which I can only describe as any teenager on his or her worst hormonal day, where every answer sounds pained and every personal boast is in league with the supernatural.

The film itself is a series of vignettes where we follow Napoleon through a maze of election intrigues, family crises, faulty time machines, Tupperware sales and serious dance moves. I guess you can say that the intrigue begins doubly when Napoleon's grandma breaks her leg, and new student Pedro Sanchez (Efren Ramirez), the only high schooler with a killer moustache and a sweet bike, befriends Napoleon. This starts a chain of events, which cumulates in Uncle Rico, who is permanently stuck in 1982, having to come watch Napoleon and his 32-year-old chatline-addicted brother Kip (Aaron Ruell). It is Uncle Rico who becomes the catalyst for Napoleon's own journey into a limited self-discovery, which is played out in one of the best dance sequences in film that I have ever seen.

What makes "Napoleon Dynamite" so fun is first and foremost its star, Jon Heder, who doesn't so much act as channel the title character from every geek, loser, weirdo that I know/have known over the years. But Heder never belittles Napoleon by making him too creepy; Napoleon may be self-involved but he is never alienating. What I also loved about "Napoleon Dynamite" - and credit should go to its director Jared Hess and screenwriter-brother Jerusha Hess - is its feel for the absurd and overwhelming urge to please its audience. They give us a universe that is both stylized yet honest, where Napoleon makes no apologies for his awesome drawing skills and "true" stories of killing wolverines in Alaska. -Joe Ramirez

E-mail a friend a link to this story.