Napoleon Dynamite

Napoleon Dynamite
Originally uploaded by Struthers.

The most quotable film of the year is undoubtedly Napoleon Dynamite. The small budget, small-town film by Jared Hess started life as a low-budget short. It's now a low-budget feature, and cult favourite among those who love a genuine flea-bitten, three-legged underdog.
Like a less caustic version of the Todd Solondz teen-angst film Welcome To The Dollhouse, Napoleon Dynamite is a brightly coloured, badly dressed, and poorly accessorised characterization of the type of geeks society pushes into the high-school lockers of life.
Napoleon (Jon Hedder) is in high-school, likes drawing pictures of a supposedly mythical half lion/half tiger creature he calls a Liger, believes in developing his nun-chuck skills to impress the ladies, and has the boldest male perm this side of the 80's.
Beginning life as a short film appears to have impacted the film in terms of structure and is still a relatively short 86 minutes. Napoleon is in essence a succession of sketches building on each other rather than a coherent feature film. It is in effect a feature-length sitcom, except funnier than anything you'll see on television anytime soon.
All the teen movie plot devices are there to be played with: A girl, a prom, a student president race, authority figures who don't understand and Napoleon front and center as the school looser. The difference to other examples of the genre is that Napoleon has not one ounce of diffidence. In fact he's over-confident and constantly rolling his eyes at the losers he's surrounded by.
Napoleon Dynamite is laugh for laugh one of the funniest films of the year, including a brilliant A-Team action sequence that will blow you away.

Napoleon Dynamite rates 3 1/2 stars.