Poll Position: Nacho Libre (2006)

What a wild poll this turned out to be! But I guess I'm partially to blame. Yesterday, with only a few hours left in the poll, I decided to see if I could stir things up to see what would happen. Nacho Libre was already in the lead by quite a margin, but when I sent out warnings that it was about to end, suddenly voters came out of hiding and the war was on! After a fierce back-and-forth fight, the poll tied up minutes before it closed and Nacho Libre tied with Beyond the Mat. For those who voted for Beyond the Mat, fear not, I will watch it tomorrow! For now though, hit the jump for Nacho Libre!


Nacho (yes that's his real name) is a simple cook/monk at an orphanage in the heart of Mexico. He's dreamed all his life of being a Luchador wrestler, and reveling in all the fame, glory, money and woman that it would come with. Unfortunately, wrestling is forbidden at the orphanage as it's seen as a sinful path, only done for greed. This won't stop Nacho though, as he needs prize money to make better meals for the children. He convinces a local street bum to fight with him in tag-team matches and the climb to the top begins!

You never know what to expect with the fights, but they're always really cool!

If it wasn't obvious from the cover, Jack Black is Nacho. Not everyone likes Jack Black's style of comedy, but I'm one of the ones who does. Normally I have a hard time getting into comedies when I'm not with friends, but there's just something about Jack Black performance that puts a smile on my face. He puts on a totally serious attitude while doing the most stupid or silly things that it just made me smile for the whole movie. There were still some jokes that didn't quite hit their mark, but for the most part I thought it was really fun, and it actually had a good story as well. Nacho really grows on his journey through the wrestling ranks, and the wrestling was surprisingly fantastic to boot! Boot to the face!

In addition to Jack Black, we also get to see Héctor Jiménez as his tag-team partner Esqueleto. This guy is just funny to look at because he's just so skinny, yet he's trying to fight these huge guys. He just gets tossed around, sometimes literally. Lastly we have Nacho's love, Sister Encarnación, who is played by Ana de la Reguera. She made a beautiful and sweet nun that seemed to fit well with the often naive Nacho. Pro-tip: if you search for her in Google Image Search, you'll find some pretty spicy photos of this hot nun!

One last thing that I noticed during the movie, was that there's frequently some really great cinematography. Lots of vast shots of the Mexican landscape, and some really epic moments in the wrestling matches too. The movie doesn't focus on it too much, but if you look for them, there is some really great shots in here.

Some surprisingly great cinematography can be found if you look for it

When I went into this movie, I actually thought I wouldn't like it. As I'm sure is clear, I ended up really liking Nacho Libre. I would definitely recommend this film to anyone, but only you know if you like Jack Black's comedy, in which case you'll have to make that judgment call on your own. Over all, it was a lighthearted silly comedy, with lots of cool over-the-top wrestling and a sweet little story holding the whole thing together. Hard not to find a little something for everyone!