Picture a redhead so carroty he makes Chris Evans look blond. Add a vacantly sagging jaw, half-closed eyes and the gait of an orang-utan, and you have Napoleon Dynamite, an appropriate title character for such a self-consciously bizarro indie comedy.
Director/co-writer Jared Hess revels in sketching middle-American misfits, and he does it well. Napoleon's brother is a pale chat room obsessive; his uncle is an ageing Chuck Norris-a-like forever reliving his high school football glory days. The entire town, meanwhile, seems stuck in an '80s timewarp, the kind of place a form of self-defence known as 'Rex Kwon Do' - promoted by a mulleted man called Rex - can gain a following.
Much of the comedy comes from the fact that everyone believes they're really cool dudes. Yet they're not all that likeable, Napoleon himself having a petulant streak that makes him tough to root for. The near-absence of plot doesn't help, as Napoleon meanders through intensely quirky set-pieces without any sense that this is taking us anywhere.
Still, the vast, lonely Idaho landscapes are beautifully shot and you can't deny the characters' indelibility, making this a flawed but credible debut for Hess that should replicate its culty Stateside popularity over here.
