THIS `NACHO' HAS JUST ENOUGH SPICE.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

Silliness takes a Mexican holiday in ``Nacho Libre.''

It's your basic Hollywood comedy concept -- a loser pursues his foolish dream well past the limits of common sense and is likely to achieve it because the movie needs a happy ending -- only with masked wrestlers and Catholic jokes and set in picturesque Oaxaca.

The cultural switch makes these thinly conceptualized shenanigans a little more amusing than they otherwise might have been. But the fact that the main talents behind the film are as gringo as they can be makes laughing more uncomfortable; so it's pretty much a draw in that department.

Starring and produced by Jack Black, co-written by his ``School of Rock'' pal Mike White and directed by Jared Hess, who gave us that summit of geek triumphalism ``Napoleon Dynamite,'' ``Nacho'' doesn't exactly disrespect Mexico. It just reduces everything and everyone to oversimplified basics.

Utterly gratuitous excremental jokes are included as, it seems, a low comedy way of saying, See, cheap laughs are the same in any language.

Fortunately, there are just enough ``Nacho'' bits that work a little harder for their effect. Black -- in long curly hair, mustache and Superman- colored Spandex -- puts on quite a show as Ignacio/Nacho, orphanage kitchen monk by day, inept lucha libre wrestler by night.

His fights, which are surprisingly vigorous (if bloodless) for a PG-rated film, are intricately choreographed. And even when the Nacho mask is on, it sure looks like Black is doing a lot of his own athletic stunt work and awkward belly flopping.

Though the Ignacio side of the character is mono-dimensional, Black commits to him with similar fervor. Raised in the orphanage himself, he's always longed to be something ... else. Long a fan of lucha and considered a dolt by the other monks, he's moved to don the mask by the arrival of comely young nun Sister Encarnacion (Ana de la Reguera, a ringer for Penelope Cruz). But before Ignacio can impress her with his, um, sweet moves, he has to somehow get around her belief that wrestling is the ultimate sin.

And there's one other thing he needs to work on: Nacho is, as he puts it, a ``stinky fighter.'' The porky gladiator drafts a skinny homeless guy, Esqueleto, onto his tag team, and this Fat-and-Slat pair regularly get their heinies handed to them by more macho competitors, some of whom are women and midgets. But the crowds love these hopeless sad sacks, and promoters keep throwing money at them.

Much as Hess unleashed one of the great freak funnymen, Jon Heder, on the world in ``Napoleon Dynamite,'' he's made another outre comic discovery this time around. Mexican actor Hector Jimenez, who plays the initially feral, eventually sweet and philosophical Esqueleto. Jimenez has got to be the most compelling dental calamity since Martha Raye.

It's not so much his abundant teeth but the amazing ways he wraps his lips around them that makes Jimenez such a soulful sight gag.

He brilliantly turns what some would consider a physical defect into a marvel of expressive beauty.

Of course, the bizarro world of the luchadores is good for ample visual humor as well, and Hess naturally makes the most of it.

But he's also made a surprisingly good-looking comedy here, cannily framing and illuminating the landscapes, architecture and distinctively Indian populace of Oaxaca with great warmth and textural sensitivity.

That's about all that's culturally sensitive in ``Nacho Libre.'' Yet the film doesn't feel mean-spirited at all, which could not be said of ``Napoleon Dynamite.'' That's kind of remarkable for a movie that's basically scene after scene of people beating each other up for money. It's not compensation for more and heartier laughs, but it's something.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

[e-mail]

NACHO LIBRE - Two and one half stars

(PG: violence, crude humor )

Starring: Jack Black, Hector Jimenez, Ana de la Reguera, Richard Montoya.

Director: Jared Hess.

Running time: 1 hr. 31 min.

Playing: In wide release.

In a nutshell: If Jack Black jumping around shirtless and speaking with a Mexican accent sounds hilarious to you, this send-up of monks and masked wrestlers will keep you in stitches. If those two elements don't tickle your fancy, the laughs will be more sporadic.

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Esqueleto (Hector Jimenez) is half of the Fat-and-Slat wrestling team in ``Nacho Libre.''