Don Verdean opens today

The feature film Don Verdean opens December 11. The satiric comedy is directe by Jared Hess, written by Jared Hess and Jerusha Hess, and produced by Dave Hunter, Brandt Andersen, and Jason Hatfield.

As with all of Jared Hess’s post-Napoleon Dynamite films, the reviews are very mixed. A few, like A. O. Scott of the New York Times, and Sean Means of the Salt Lake Tribune, appreciate the off-beat humor. Many others are not amused.

A. O. Scott, New York Times. “One of the questions that hovers around the early scenes of “Don Verdean” is whether its title character is a knowing charlatan or a true believer. He certainly seems to be in earnest. He has also fallen on hard times, speaking in front of sparse audiences and living in the kind of recreational vehicle that might, thanks to “Breaking Bad,” evoke a meth lab rather than the chariot of a righteous man. Another question has to do with the targets of the film’s humor. With its supporting cast of ambitious megachurch pastors and naïve churchgoers, this might look like a satire of religion, or at least of certain aspects of 21st-century American Christianity. But “Don Verdean,” written by Jared and Jerusha Hess, the couple who cooked up “Napoleon Dynamite,” “Nacho Libre” and “Gentlemen Broncos,” and directed, like those movies, by Mr. Hess, is more accurately described as a religious satire. Its intentions are, to some degree, corrective: It mocks some of the popular corruptions of faith so as to invite the audience to reflect upon what real faith might be. This makes it sound like Sunday school, but “Don Verdean” makes fun of that too, and of a whole lot of faith-based popular culture. And if the Hesses carry the viewer, and Don, toward a higher truth, they bear us upward on wings of pure silliness. This is a movie that features Danny McBride as a slick, smiling minister, Will Forte as his scowling, ex-Satanist rival and Jemaine Clement as an Israeli excavator named Boaz. The cast also includes the reliably, sneakily hilarious Amy Ryan as Carol, Don’s loyal assistant and eventual dupe . . . The goofiness is resolutely inoffensive, though the low-key clowning may not be to everyone’s taste. There is an absence of meanness in the Hesses’ comic worldview that makes their films almost impossible to dislike. Everyone in “Don Verdean,” including Don himself, misbehaves in the full expectation of forgiveness, and if you don’t love the movie, or don’t quite get it, you’ll be forgiven, too.”

Sean Means, SL Tribune. 3.5 stars. “In “Don Verdean,” director Jared Hess and his co-writer/wife, Jerusha Hess, show their comic skills are as sharp, and as strange, as when they made “Napoleon Dynamite” in 2004. What’s new is that the Hesses are aiming their oddball humor toward a specific target: the question of faith and whether one can maintain that faith without proof . . . Rockwell and Clement have history with the Hesses — they both starred in their 2009 farce “Gentlemen Broncos,” and here they deliver plenty of laughs as their characters’ situations grow more farcically desperate . . . What’s most remarkable in “Don Verdean” is the way the Hesses poke fun at the folly of biblical archaeology — and the underlying notion that evidence makes one’s beliefs more solid — without being nasty or belittling about religion itself. As for whether audiences will get the distinction in the middle of the gut-busting laughs, the Hesses take it on faith that they will.”

Mike D’Angelo, AV Club. C-. “A decade after Napoleon Dynamite, the husband-and-wife team of Jared and Jerusha Hess—both write, Jared directs—is looking more and more like a one-hit wonder. Their sophomore effort, Nacho Libre (2006), starring Jack Black, was viewed by most as a disappointment, though it looked inspired next to 2009’s dismally received Gentlemen Broncos, which featured (among others) Sam Rockwell and Jemaine Clement. Both Rockwell and Clement are back for the latest Hess production, Don Verdean, which can’t even work up enough comic energy to be considered bad. This may well be the year’s most tepid movie, in any genre—the cinematic equivalent of flat, warm soda pop. It’s not that the jokes don’t land, so much as that they’re often too drab and listless to even be clearly identifiable as attempts at humor. Rockwell is the main problem, sadly. He plays the title character, a sort of Z-grade Indiana Jones wannabe who scours the Holy Land for Biblical relics and is the star of a once-popular DVD series, though his work is either disparaged or ignored by the archaeological community. Out of the blue, Don receives an offer of patronage from Tony Lazarus (Danny McBride), a Christian pastor who allegedly died and then returned to life—just one of the film’s numerous not-quite-funny details. (It’s related onscreen almost exactly as it was in the previous sentence, then never mentioned again. Is the joke just that his name is Lazarus? Who knows?) Desperate to please, Don deliberately fakes having found the skull of Goliath, then winds up being blackmailed by his Israeli confederate, Boaz (Clement), who promises to keep his mouth shut in exchange for a trip to America and a date with Don’s research assistant, Carol (Amy Ryan). Soon, Don and Boaz are fabricating the Holy Grail for an eccentric Chinese billionaire (Stephen Park). Perhaps because the Hesses are practicing Mormons, they seem extremely reluctant to poke fun at religious credulity, which effectively neuters any chance Don Verdean might have had to work as satire. Don himself is almost spectacularly dull—a true believer who becomes a charlatan out of his sincere desire to convert others to Christianity. Rockwell takes the character so seriously that he never seems to have fun; he actually comes across a lot like the recurring firearms expert Gary Cole plays on The Good Wife, complete with laconic drawl. This forces Clement to lean extremely hard on a goofy accent that doesn’t sound so much Israeli, or even stereotypically Jewish, but more nasally phlegmatic. Meanwhile, poor Amy Ryan is trapped in a thankless role that’s belatedly revealed to be half of a slow-burning romance, though the fire between Carol and Don never ignites, even when the screenplay insists that it has. Will Forte provides a bit of life in a small part as a rival pastor seeking to steal Lazarus’ flock, but the laughs he gets (by slowly rising from the ground in a crowd to ask a question, for example, and then slowly sinking back to his knees afterward) seem to have been imported from another, much more aggressively absurdist comedy. Mostly, Don Verdean can’t be bothered. Try harder, Jared and Jerusha. Gosh!”

Guardian. 1 star out of 5. “A typical Saturday Night Live sketch lasts about five minutes. That’s just enough time to get in your premise, your broadly drawn characters, their funny hair and clothing, a few quality zings and – if we’re being honest – a moment or two of awkward miscalculations. Jared Hess, the director of the unexpected indie success Napoleon Dynamite and, more recently, the wretched Gentlemen Broncos, seems to think he has the goods to break this rule. Comedy is, of course, subjective, but atrocious storytelling is undeniable. This (alleged) satire of a Bible-belt huckster getting in-too-deep with a pair of rival churches is idiotic and unfocused, and sitting through its tedium is a sufferance more befitting of Job. I’d call it offensive to religious people, but it’s too inept to even pull that off . . . What’s so frustrating (other than the total absence of jokes) is the movie’s indecision over whether to make its characters loathsome creeps or well-meaning guys who get in over their heads. Lazarus is a dunce, but he wants to spread the Gospel to his flock. Verdean might feel the same way, but Hess’ direction makes it impossible to tell. It isn’t nuance, it’s being tone-deaf. Rockwell plays everything broad, and the pursuit of every cheap laugh ensures the character stays a cartoon. Again, this is how you do it in sketch comedy, but someone should have been there to rein him in. Jared Hess is more interested in getting as many funny-looking side characters with ludicrous haircuts in the frame rather than telling a story. Jemaine Clement, a marvellous comic actor, is left similarly adrift. Boaz is a lovable goof at first, with a preposterous Israeli accent that, when he gets angry, sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger running out of oxygen in Total Recall. But a movie needs its stakes raised, so he’s clumsily turned into a baddie (and a Jewish stereotype, to boot, but I’ll give Hess the benefit and say he’s too much of a putz to be intentionally malicious.) By the end we’re left with no one to root for, except for the eventual deliverance of the closing credits . . . The con artists are Jared Hess and his screenwriting partner (and wife) Jerusha Hess. Let’s hope they’re less successful in pawning off their next fraud.”

Los Angeles Times. “Jared Hess has struggled to find his comedic voice over the decade since the breakout success of “Napoleon Dynamite. His latest attempt, “Don Verdean,” finds Hess and his spouse and writing partner, Jerusha, rooting around in Christopher Guest territory with their spoof about a self-proclaimed biblical archaeologist who supposedly tracks down Old Testament relics. The end result, however, fails to unearth much laughter . . . Even with the likes of Amy Ryan and Will Forte providing capable backup, it all grows ancient, fast.”

Andrew Lapin, NPR. “In the last few years, the so-called “faith-based” film industry has expanded by Miracle-Gro leaps and bounds. Smash hits like God’s Not Dead and War Room found their audiences by not only explicitly referencing the Almighty, but also casting Him to intervene in the lives of ordinary Americans, whether by inspiring a true-believer student to win a debate against his atheist professor or casting Satan out of an abusive marriage. If you took one of those movies, flipped it over, doused it with skepticism and looked at it in the mirror, you’d wind up with Don Verdean, the story of a crooked archaeologist who fakes the discoveries of holy artifacts in order to bring people closer to God (but also for profit, too, if he’s being honest). The film isn’t quite funny enough as an Indiana Jones parody, but it works better as a light, sporadically clever send-up of Biblical literalism and elements of American megachurch culture. And coming from Napoleon Dynamite creators Jared and Jerusha Hess (Mormons who reside in Utah, where the film is set), it has a quirky outsider perspective that keeps it from feeling like a cynical Hollywood hornet’s-nest poking . . . It’s surprisingly biting, dark territory for the writer-director pair who brought the world “Vote for Pedro” and the brightly clad luchadores of Nacho Libre—although the movie’s deadpan style and faux-amateurish rough edges are perfectly in line with the Hess filmography. Also like their past films, the humor is very hit-and-miss, both because it’s wielding a rather blunt satirical weapon and because the sheer number of people Don fools becomes hard to swallow. But when Don Verdean‘s barbs land, they work, whether McBride is launching into a Voltron-inspired theory about dinosaur fossils or Will Forte, as a reformed-Satanist-turned-rival-preacher, is condemning the evils of breakfast cereal. There are times when the film feels mean-spirited, something that’s hard to avoid when your comedic target is religion. As though to counteract the idea that these believers are all either snake-oil peddlers or dangerously gullible, the Hesses assert that Don himself isn’t a bad guy so much as a desperate one. The true villain turns out to be Boaz, who in the latter half comes close to being a crooked Jewish stereotype — though he’s surrounded by much more overt Evangelical stereotypes. But distancing your protagonist from his actions is a disingenuous move when you began with him exploiting, for personal gain, both religion and public misconceptions of his trade. If you’re going to go after something as hot-button as faith, at least have the courage of your convictions.”

Chicago Reader. “Napoleon Dynamite (2004) made Jared and Jerusha Hess the freshest new voices in American screen comedy; Nacho Libre (2006) made them embarrassing one-trick ponies. I haven’t seen their Gentleman Broncos (2009), but this fourth feature, a lampoon of Christian pseudohistory, shows them breaking new ground and scoring plenty of laughs. Sam Rockwell applies his usual deft touch to the title character, whose born-again ministry is founded on his dubious excavation of religious relics in Israel, but whose charlatanism serves a sincere and abiding faith. Amy Ryan is his gullible, adoring research assistant, and just as the satirical dividends begin to give out, Jemaine Clement jump-starts the movie with his sly performance as a scheming, lovelorn Israeli guiding the Americans around the Valley of Elah in search of Goliath’s skull.” 

Variety: “The “Napoleon Dynamite” magic fails to re-materialize in Jared and Jerusha Hess’ latest comedy. “Don Verdean” has a promising premise: The titular protagonist is a self-appointed “biblical archaeologist” roaming the globe for famous relics that have mysteriously evaded far more qualified experts for centuries. But the expected satire of religious gullibility and charlatanism proves toothless; worse, a cast of very funny people is given very little funny to do. This Lionsgate title looks to make its primary, modest impact in ancillary formats. Things look encouraging enough at the outset, as we are privy to a highlight reel of low-end video clips from “Verdeen Acheological Discovery Prods.,” in which Sam Rockwell’s intrepid explorer for Jesus is seen allegedly wowing international audiences of the faithful with his amazing — or perhaps just credulity-stretching — finds in the Holy Land dirt. It seems whenever he thinks of a key memento from a biblical story, his faith leads him like a divining rod to its burial site. A decade later, however, he’s lecturing to paltry audiences back home in the U.S., his visibility perhaps diminished by the fact (as one attendee points out) that he appears to be entirely unknown or dismissed as a quack by any body of recognized, accredited archaeological researchers . . . All this is fair enough in outline, but individual situations and dialogue are pedestrian at best, downright witless at worst. The Hesses seem reluctant to risk insulting the faithful, so they’ve made a film about evangelical fraud that isn’t willing to let anyone (except Jewish Boaz) have clearly less-than-virtuous intentions. It would be better for comedic purposes if Verdean were either an overt con man or a holy fool, but the script and Rockwell’s performance play for a tepid middle ground that achieves little beyond being inoffensive. The actor is an executive producer here, and he’s been so consistently good in almost-star-making roles for the past couple of decades that it’s disappointing that this lead turn proves to be one of his more forgettable ones. Ryan doesn’t find much humor in her role, while others like McBride and Bibb have nowhere to go after making amusing first impressions. Forte does brighten his scenes with a MacGruber-esque crass bravado, while Clement steals nearly all of his — proving that one really funny accent can lift an entire movie. (He also has the sole, regrettably brief bit of inspired physical comedy, a swivel-hipped disco seduction dance.) But these two manage to be standouts with scant help from their material. Shot in Utah and Israel, pic’s assembly is OK, though budgetary limitations are somewhat noticeable. There’s no price tag on the film’s real poverty, however, which lays in the realm of inspired comedic situations and dialogue. The only notable soundtrack element is a jokey use of a few obvious gospel-pop oldies.”

Hollywood Reporter: “Biblical archeology and satirical comedy make for uneasy bedfellows in Don Verdean, the fourth feature of director Jared Hess after the hits Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre and the more-strange-than-funny Gentlemen Broncos. Here too, there’s a sense that the goings-on are more quirky than comical as a self-described Biblical archeologist, played by Sam Rockwell, sets out to find the skull of Goliath — the giant downed by a stone from little David’s sling — at the request of a U.S. pastor hoping to draw a younger crowd with “hard evidence.” Bought by Lionsgate before its Sundance premiere, this film should be closer to Broncos’ cheerless box-office numbers than the tens of millions made by Hess’s first two films, though perhaps some savvy marketing could somehow make a miracle happen and turn this into a minor, ahem, cult item. Like Broncos, the funniest bit is placed right up front, with the opening consisting of a poor VHS-quality copy of a TV report about the recent excavational exploits of Donald Verdean (Rockwell) in the Middle East, where he managed to locate the Biblical Samson’s shears . . . But apart from a zinger about the only true place of religious relics (hint: It’s not in the Holy Land) and a chuckle-inducing song, Hess and his co-writer, his wife Jerusha Hess, who are Utah-based Mormons, don’t push the material far enough to develop any comic momentum, let alone sustain it or find an opportunity to develop any kind of insightful satire of religion or at least charlatans who use religion for their own gains. One of the film’s few lines to get more than a chuckle involves someone being compared to “that whore from Les Miserables.” This line wouldn’t raise any eyebrow in most movies but is a rather unusual one here, as none of Hess’s previous films contained any swear words. This concession isn’t crucial to the (relative) success of the movie, though it does suggest how the Hesses might have been struggling to find the right tone for the material. Indeed, one of the film’s major problems is its ambivalence about the title character. Is Don a ruthless (and thus probably Godless) imposter hoping to either become famous or improve his station — his rickety trailer is certainly ready for an upgrade — or someone who, as the movie at times seems to suggest, actually cares about helping “someone get to heaven who wouldn’t get there otherwise” via his fake artifacts that are in demand by churches everywhere? Even after Don’s gone to Israel to fabricate a skull he can pass off as the head of Goliath and later gets involved with a Chinese Christian billionaire looking for the Holy Grail of Biblical artifacts in an Indian reservation, it’s kind of hard to tell. The fact that the film sort just sort of peters out instead of coming to a rousing end doesn’t help matters either.”

Josh Terry, Deseret News. “In spite of its silly sheen, “Don Verdean” does tap into the nature of what makes up sincere religious belief. While its characters wrestle with the ethical push and pull of their efforts, the tenuous faith of the various congregations seems to teeter on seeing physical proof of various biblical stories. Rockwell and Clement have a good time with the material and are well-suited as a comic odd couple, though McBride’s over-the-top preacher may be the most natural matching of actor and character. Ryan emotes the same daft sweetness she mastered on TV’s “The Office” as Michael Scott’s dream girl, and Forte is effective in some comparatively limited screen time. Local audiences will also have a good time flagging Utah landmarks throughout the film. Most of “Don Verdean” was filmed in Salt Lake City and southern Utah, which acts as a stand-in for the Holy Land. Audience members at a Saturday night Sundance screening smiled at a third act chase through Antelope Canyon and laughed while watching Boaz and Carol pull up to Habits for an awkward night on the town.”

Village Voice. “There’s terrific comic potential in the idea at the heart of Don Verdean, the latest shrug of a film from Jared and Jerusha Hess, the husband-wife writer-director team behind Napoleon Dynamite, Nacho Libre, and one that for good reason you haven’t seen, Gentlemen Broncos. That idea: A fraud of a “biblical” archaeologist digs up holy “relics” for a fraud of a pastor to pass off as real to a congregation of eager believers. Better still, for farcical reasons, that archaeologist eventually must trick a mad billionaire by faking an Indiana Jones–style cave adventure, complete with skeletons, angry natives, and a New Testament wonder at the end. That premise is priceless, and, like Indy himself, you’ll probably want — after seeing what the Hesses do with it — to snatch it away and turn it over to the experts. The Hesses do to it pretty much what Raiders‘ Nazis had planned for the Ark of the Covenant: They make it into a bomb. It’s generous to call their films hit-and-miss, as that implies that the Hesses try, really, to make a gag hit. Here, as always, they seem more engaged with curious, meaningless details than with character or jokes. You might not know, by the end, whether Sam Rockwell’s archaeologist truly believes the nonsense he sells on his low-rent book tour, or whether he’s actually as cruelly dismissive of his lovestruck assistant, Carol (Amy Ryan), as he seems. But you will know that when he drinks milk he winds up wearing it on his mustache.”

Jared Hess feature, Salt Lake Tribune.

BYU grad, ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ creator talks new religious comedy, family business and mentors. Deseret News feature.