The Sasquatch Gang

I went into this film with little knowledge of its plot beyond what IMDb and the Slamdance Film Festival published (at the time of this writing, there isn't a trailer or even a poster!).

That being said, I found myself starting to laugh at the very opening sequence, where the three geeks "prepare to do battle." The moment that won me over was when Gavin (played by Jeremy Sumpter) went over to a little portable CD boom-box to play some medieval music to set the "proper scene" for the battle! From then on, I sat back, relaxed, and enjoyed a pleasant comedy that was well-written, directed, edited, and acted (definitely a breakout performance by Sumpter as well as Hubbel Palmer as his sidekick).

Judging from the sustained laughter from the audience, I wasn't alone in my admiration for this independent film.

Justin Long is Gavin's burn out neighbor, who desperate for money hatches a somewhat brilliant plan to sell fake plaster casts of Bigfoot prints. Gavin and his friends discover the Bigfoot tracks while out hiking one afternoon and race off to tell the authorities. Eventually the law (Jon Gries) brings a Sasquatch expert (Carl Weathers) to see the Bigfoot poo and prints they find in a local forest. Gavin's friends and rivals decide to complicate matters and sabotage Gavin's chance for fame.

Tim Skousen, of 2001's Leon, apparently decided to have his actors pretend they were in Napoleon Dynamite. What happened was some crazy amalgamation of Napoleon Dynamite, Joe Dirt, Bully and several other influences I recognized. Here the main character, Gavin (Jeremy Sumpter), seems in many ways to be the least nerdish character in the group. I applaud Addie Land who played what is easily imaginable as a real life unflattering role of the cute girl who inescapably has it in her genes to become fat. Most of the acting is not credible but the performances are caricatures anyway so it matters little.

A friend of mine has been trying to get me to watch this movie forever and I finally agreed, so I went in expecting to hate it. I was surprised this wasn't a Jared Hess film, since a lot of the characters seemed like they were trying to be Napoleon Dynamite the whole time.

Despite my initial misgivings, there were stretches were I was enjoying myself. It's definitely the kind of movie that you would want to watch with friends. The narrative structure is one that switches perspective, and I think this technique worked well for story. And some of the characters deliver genuinely funny moments. But there was the occasional moment, usually a fight scene, that turned me off, especially in the film's climax.

Ultimately, my friend wasn't wrong to like the movie, but it's not one I would ever insist others to view.

Tim Skousen, the first assistant director on Napoleon Dynamite, serves as the director and writer on The Sasquatch Gang. This is clearly a copy of Napoleon Dynamite, but it is stronger and funnier in its humor. The character Napoleon Dynamite was slow, incompetent, not funny, trying to hard, and hard to like for most of the film. The lead character here is an adolescent, following in his footsteps, but seems to be more aware of his surroundings and can actually be called a "worthy hero." With Napoleon, he just wandered around aimlessly on screen for almost two hours stumbling from next plot point to next.

The plot: The story is sort of an anthology showing what a certain group of characters do, then showing what another group of characters were doing while the first were doing it. The stories intervene with each other, and I wasn't expecting this type of film to do that. It works in its favor big time. Geeky Gavin (Sumpter) and his friends Hobie (Palmer) and Maynard (Pinkston) enjoy fighting in their front yard with Styrofoam swords covered in colored tape. One day, Gavin and his buddies go into the woods and find feces and footprints of what they believe is from the Sasquatch.

Gavin continues to visit Sophie (Land) an insecure adolescent who works at the local video store. She is so insecure that she has her dentist uncle wire her mouth shut so she doesn't eat as much. Meanwhile, the two rednecks living next door (Kern and Long) are kept busy all day, and we see their day's work after we see our protagonist's work.

The Gavin character resembles a younger John Heder, the main character in Napoleon Dynamite. The Sophie character resembles Tina Majorino, the love interest in Napoleon Dynamite as well. It isn't hard to note a pattern forming with the characters, and it isn't hard to piece together this is a blatant knockoff of the film. Even Jon Heder makes a cameo appearance. If that isn't the "hey, look at me, I'm just like that guy!" moment I don't know what is.

I'd still go back and watch this before Napoleon because I found these characters so much more likable than the characters in that film. They were more fun to follow and learn about. Their main character doesn't drag his feet thru the storyline.

This isn't by any means a hilarious film, with numerous laughs, and a script to die for. It's a comedy. A decent one. There's parts that I found entertaining, like the scenes with Joey Kern and Justin Long, and parts that disinterested me, like the buildup between the relationship of the teenagers. I felt the film could've been smarter, and not focus on something like that. Still, The Sasquatch Gang manages to be better than the film it is a copy of. I can't say that happens to often in the industry.

Starring: Jeremy Sumpter, Justin Long, Joey Kern, Addie Land, Hubbel Palmer, Rob Pinkston. Directed by: Tim Skousen.

A tale of three sword-wielding super-geeks who believe they've stumbled upon evidence that Bigfoot lives in the woods outside of town, "The Sasquatch Gang" is so goofy and good-natured in its demeanor and tone that only a complete curmudgeon would be mean enough to criticize it.

Jeremy Sumpter (of TV's "Friday Night Lights") leads the trio of mono-toned, monosyllabic nerds who regularly suffer the slings and arrows (or, more accurately, paint-ball guns) of the even more zonked-out and inarticulate town bullies, led by Justin Long.

The movie has just enough wit, tenderness and charm to overcome some of its essential blandness, and its portrayal of first love can be really quite endearing at times. However, the movie is considerably less successful when it goes for the broadly comic, becoming merely juvenile and silly at such moments.

Concerned parents should note that "The Sasquatch Gang" is more than appropriate for a pre-teen/early teen audience (think of it as the "clean" version of "Superbad" or "Revenge of the Nerds"). Anyone older than that, however, may find it a bit too much on the innocuous side to be worth their time or money.