'GENTLEMEN BRONCOS' is a comedy so weird, so off, so simply wrong that even freakish hero Napoleon Dynamite would have a hard time lending it his catch word, "Sweet."

That it comes from the makers of "Napoleon Dynamite" is just sad. Not that "Napoleon Dynamite" is anything more than a sturdy cult favorite, but when that little ode to outsiders became an indie hit in 2004, it did seem a signal of fresh talent with an agreeably askew outlook to challenge the mainstream.

Then the husband-and-wife team of director Jared Hess and co-writer Jerusha Hess went on to make basically the same movie in a bigger way with Jack Black's "Nacho Libre." While "Gentlemen Broncos" is not exactly another

"Napoleon" replica, the Hesses strain to mine another misfit story in the same vein.

Once more, we get a downtrodden male hero with crazy ambitions — in the case of "Gentlemen Broncos," teenager Benjamin Purvis (Michael Angarano), a home-schooled social reject who yearns to become a science-fiction writer. Like the Hesses' previous protagonists, Benjamin gradually gathers a support system of family and friends, along with a few adversaries, all of them at least as odd as he is.

While the characters serve somewhat different purposes, "Gentlemen Broncos" also falls into what is now a cliched triumvirate for the Hesses: Strange young leading man, his chaste romantic interest (Halley Feiffer as Tabitha, another aspiring writer

who champions Benjamin's stories), and laconic Latino associate (Hector Jimenez, Black's sidekick in "Nacho Libre," this time playing overreaching filmmaker Lonnie, who shoots a no-budget adaptation of one of Benjamin's stories).

The real test of Benjamin's mettle comes after his literary hero, washed-up fantasy writer and all-around blowhard Ronald Chevalier (Jemaine Clement), swipes the same story of Benjamin's that Lonnie chooses to film.

Clement, half of the musical comedy duo "Flight of the Conchords," is the movie's lone highlight. Although his Chevalier is repugnant and often tiresome, at least he's funny at times and kind of interesting.

Unlike expressive Napoleon and Nacho, Benjamin is mostly a meek kitten, Angarano playing him with almost a medicated aloofness much of the time. Feiffer is annoyingly perky and Jimenez is odious.

The rest of the cast ranges from chafing (Jennifer Coolidge as Benjamin's mom, who works at a nightgown shop and dreams of breaking out with her own garish clothing designs) to woeful (producer Mike White, a bore as a snake enthusiast who becomes a paternal figure of sorts for Benjamin).

There are chuckles early on over somee oddities, but "Gentlemen Broncos" quickly grows saddle-sore as the Hesses pile on one grotesquerie after another. The movie's a chaotic, infuriating mess that will challenge the most-devoted of the "Napoleon Dynamite" faithful.