GENTLEMEN BRONCOS (12A) ** DIRECTED BY: JARED HESS STARRING: JEMAINE CLEMENT, MICHAEL ANGARANO, JENNIFER COOLIDGE
THE presence of Flight of the Conchords star Jemaine Clement is the main point of interest in this so-so comedy from Jared Hess, whose take-it-or-leave-it comic sensibilities can be endearingly oddball (Napoleon Dynamite) or frustratingly obtuse (Nacho Libre). Clement plays a deluded, creatively washed-up pulp sci-fi novelist clinging on to his status as a minor cult figure. With his publisher rejecting his latest work, he decides to rip-off a terrible-sounding novel he stumbles across during a workshop for aspiring sci-fi writers he's leading, a move that puts him in direct conflict with his biggest fan. This is 17-year-old outcast Benjamin (Michael Angarano), whose imaginative flights of fancy the film depicts in schlock cinema-style, with Sam Rockwell playing his cheeseball hero. The movie mostly focuses on Benjamin as he tries to adapt his novel into a DIY blockbuster, but it's only when Clement's wonderfully named Dr Ronald Chevalier is on screen that it actually comes to life.