Americana

An ensemble cast of peculiar characters all struggling to possess a valuable native American artifact. They mostly have zero experience in the criminal side of society and are laughably bad trying to learn.

The story is told in chapters, Tarantino style. Unlike Tarantino, all but one of the chapters are told in linear order, so apart from the change of character the chapters are meaningless.

Another difference from Tarantino is that the characters are left somewhat cartoonish. Not 2 dimensional, but not deeply developed either. It would be easy to add 30 minutes delving into the characters backstory and getting us more invested in their story arc. But that would get gritty and unpleasant in a way this movie doesn't want. In particular with the father character and those at his house.

I had not looked at the body of work for writer, director Tony Tost. But looking now I see Pokerface, The Terror, and a host of other good shows. He's made another winner here. There's also mention of a Forrest Whitaker movie in the dialogue, I need to look that up.

Best performances go to Zahn McClarnon, Gavin Maddox Bergmen, and Sydney Sweeney, in that order. Zahn and Gavin get a good amount of screen time together and those are some of the best moments in the movie.

I'm between giving this a 7 or 8. I will go with 8 because it appears the recent Jean ad featuring Ms Sweeney has provoked some people into dumping 1 star reviews here. My biggest complaint would be the title, which seems to suggest the movie will reflect core American values. It doesn't. It is set in the heartland (south dakota) and lovingly filmed in and around albuquerque, but that alone doesn't warrant a title of that significance.

I have no problem with Sydney's political stance (I love Mel Gibson's films and even laughed at several of Rob Schneider's), but it's just another run-of-the-mill film by the actress who doesn't stand out in any way. Whoever wants to see it, let them.

Too forgettable and not memorable. 2 of 10 my review.

There are enough likeable characters here with own special quirks - country music and reincarnation obsessions, art theft and cultural appropriation - to make "Americana" a fun late summer journey to the movies. Sydney Sweeney before she was involved in any eugenics controversy, Halsey, and Paul Walter Hauser along with a great Zahn McClarnon all offer something interesting, sort of like "Nashville" and "Thunderheart" thrown in a blender. It along with "Eddington" give hope that a kind of revival of nineties indie cinema might be around the corner, or at least before the next Superman reboot.

For a heist movie, this seems to move real slow. Character development are important but film maker seem to not care about run time. If you like Halsey, she makes an appearance early for a short time then disappears until much later then you get a lot of. This film conceptually sound good but it is only (small) part heist. Not even half way through I've already lost interest. I stuck it out and luckily the kid and ghost face aka Henry scene kept me a little invested how the movie progresses. In my opinion the character Henry Alvin made this film tolerable. Halsey did good (I think this is her film debut) acting out her parts. The film is mostly drama and I realized this after much given thought. The end is perfect as it didn't fall into the trappings of a feel good film - the reincarnation nonsense was resoundingly rejected by the true adult in this film. The ending makes perfect sense also because Halsey's character finally realizes true wealth. What would make this film score higher than my six out of ten rating is if they had less of that excruciatingly slow scenes (yes, multiple) with hefty lefty cowboy and Sydney's character.

This movie was an unexpected gem. Quirky characters and storylines develop well and intertwine until they all come together in a totally unexpected and dramatic way. When the movie was wrapping up, I didn't want people around me to know I was on the verge of tears. I will be stopping at the store to buy some PBR!