#1,506. Napoleon Dynamite (2004) - The Films of Jared Hess

Directed By: Jared Hess

Starring: Jon Heder, Efren Ramirez, Jon Gries




Tag line: "It's Gonna Be a Dynamite Summer"

Trivia: A "Napoleon Dynamite" festival was held every year from 2004-08 in Preston, Idaho, the city where the movie was filmed







I first caught Napoleon Dynamite during its theatrical run. I remember it vividly; I had just attended an 8 pm. screening of Zach Braff’s Garden State, and, not being particularly tired, felt like checking out another movie.

Now, I had heard of Napoleon Dynamite, which was something of an indie hit, but hadn’t seen the trailer or read any reviews. So I had no idea what to expect. It was a late-night showing, and there were only about a dozen of us in the theater (Interesting side note: I was in my mid-‘30s at the time, yet was still the oldest person there by at least a decade).

The movie started. I smiled during the opening credits sequence, in which the names of the film’s cast and crew were spelled out in ketchup on dinner plates, or plastered onto the label of a tube of Chapstick.

Once the credits were over, the main character, teenager Napoleon Dynamite (John Heder), walked out the front door of his house and hopped onto a school bus. He made a beeline for the back seat, where another kid asked him what he is going to do today. “Whatever I FEEL like I want to do, GOSH!” was Napoleon’s curt reply.

He then grabbed a small toy out of his book bag, an action figure with a long string wrapped around it. Making sure the driver wasn’t looking, Napoleon held one end of the string, then tossed the figure out the window. It dragged along the road, skipping over stones and kicking up dust as the bus continued on its way.

That was the moment I knew Napoleon Dynamite was going to be one very strange motion picture.

It also made me laugh. A lot.

Napoleon and his older brother Kip (Aaron Ruell), who spends his days in cyber chat rooms getting to know his new on-line girlfriend, live with their grandmother (Sandy Martin). While out with some friends one afternoon, Grandma breaks her coccyx, and has to spend a few days in the hospital. As a result, Napoleon's Uncle Rico (Jon Gries), a middle-aged former high-school quarterback who can’t let go of the past, temporarily moves in to keep an eye on things.

Hoping to raise enough money to buy a time machine (which he’ll use to travel back to 1982, to help his high school team with the championship game), Rico signs up to be a Tupperware salesman, and even talks Kip into helping him.

Meanwhile, Napoleon (who is something of an outcast at school) befriends new student Pedro (Efren Ramirez) and falls for Deb (Tina Majorino), a shy girl with her own photography business. Napoleon even convinces Pedro to run for class president against the obnoxious Summer Wheatly (Haylie Duff), a cheerleader and one of the "popular" kids.

But all this is just scratching the surface. In fact, some of the film’s funniest moments have nothing to do with the main story, like when a school bus pulls up in front of Napoleon’s house just in time to see the farmer across the street shoot his cow; or when Kip (who, despite his slight frame, aspires to be a cage fighter) and Napoleon visit a martial arts fitness center owned and operated by the boisterous Rex (Diedrich Bader).

Napoleon himself is also good for a few chuckles, spinning outrageous yarns designed to impress his classmates. In the locker room one afternoon, he tells Don (Trevor Snarr) and some others how he spent the summer in Alaska hunting wolverines.

But of all the hilarious scenes, the one that cracked me up the most was when Napoleon and Kip tested Uncle Rico’s new time machine. Needless to say, it didn’t work.

Produced for about $400k, Napoleon Dynamite is packed with a million dollars’ worth of laughs!