3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Americana

2023, Tony Tost (feature debut) -- download

I used to reference "cleaning out the cupboards" or similar idioms in reference to finally getting around to writing about movies I had recently seen. But since I now see fewer movies, and generally stub them & write about them quicker, it doesn't apply. BUT maybe it applies to those downloaded movies that I grabbed quickly, but also quickly forgot about for newer, shinier movies. This is one of those. I have many more.

[Soooo many more. I usually start at "latest" and push back, which means I eventually find something and start watching. Today, I reversed the order and I have SO MANY 'unwatched' movies downloaded, I could start my own streaming service.]

Tost is primarily a writer, of shows like Damnation, which he was creator, and Longmire, and showrunner for Poker Face. He writes about "the American experience" which is a rather sweeping comment to make, by anyone. But outsiders (including us) have a view of what "American" means and it often involves cowboys, violence and the downtrodden rising up. Too bad the current viewpoint will only leave them seen as the often violent abusers. America used to be a fictional heroic figure, and I am not sure if its pop culture image will ever recover from what we are going through now, even if that past vision was mostly through rose coloured glasses.

This is the kind of movie I would lumped into a Tarantino-wannabe bucket about twenty years ago. It has a decently large cast, a plot with lots of moving pieces and ends with a great amount of violence. 

It begins with a death. Mandy (Halsey, Sing 2) is escaping her abusive boyfriend Dillon (Eric Dane, The Last Ship). She is forced to leave her "little brother" behind,  who claims to be "the reincarnation of Sitting Bull" come back to save his people. She drives off with a priceless "Indian artifact" in the trunk and Dillon comes out to find the kid with an arrow nocked -- a few fly into the trailer, but the last catches him in the neck. Dillon and I both let out a "huh" before he falls down dead.

Air quote much?

It should be said that the movie, shot widescreen, highlights the vast empty barren landscape of the American Midwest. I would think it was somewhere Texas or Arizona, but it claims to be South Dakota.I guess I am not truly caught up on my geographical Americana, but yeah, peeking at a map confirms South Dakota is definitely "cowboy land".

The next pieces in the puzzle, and its really not a huge puzzle, are Lefty Ledbetter (right handed; Paul Walter Hauser, The Fantastic Four: First Steps) who keeps proposing to women he has been on three dates with, and Penny Jo (Sydney Sweeney, Madame Web), a stuttering waitress with a dream of becoming  a country & western singer. Penny has overheard Dillon, days before his death, plotting with a "antiquities dealer" to steal a Ghost Shirt from its owner. She conspires with the sweet but naive Lefty to steal it from Dillon and sell it herself, so she can fund herself moving to Nashville. Not long after, we see Dillon and Fun Dave (Joe Adler, Damnation) break into the house of a pompous wealthy man, brutally murder everyone at a party and steal the shirt. Dillon immediately kills Fun Dave for having feelings over the murders. And then, not long after that, Mandy steals the Shirt.

Mandy flees back to the relative safety of her family home, with Penny Jo and Lefty following. Mandy's family is a protected compound of backwater hick manosphere types where her father is the patriarch.  She just needs a place to lie low until she figures out how to sell the Shirt. Meanwhile, her little brother Cal (Gavin Maddox Bergman, Spirited), who we learn is her son (duh...), has found his way onto the rez and is not endearing himself with the local militant Native American group, considering his whole Sitting Bull schtick. 

And thus begins the convergence on Mandy's father's compound. Ghost Eye (Zahn McClarnon, Lomgmire) and his militant group, Penny Jo & Lefty, and the original dealer in antiquities who paid Dillon to steal the Shirt. And this is where the "Tarantino" comes in, i.e. lots of violence. Lefty is shot, Mandy is shot, most of Ghost Eye's crew are killed, the male members of Mandy's "family" are killed, and the antiquities dealer is killed, leaving behind the money he was going to pay for the Shirt. The Shirt itself goes to the surviving Ghost Eye, who rejects Cal at the door to the res; he's not having any of this next-level cultural appropriation from a ten year old. The movie ends with Penny Jo driving off into the sunrise, leaving behind the corpse of Lefty, with a bag of money and proving, wow, she can actually sing.

I am not entirely sure of the proper commentary on the American experience, beyond being wrapped up in violence, but it is mostly definitely a very American indie film. Tost is adept at characters and dialogue so all of that rings true and while most in the movie are character actors, the few faces we know (and are on the poster) are doing a proper job. I wonder where Sweeney is going with her career, as she takes on more and more roles that divest her her from a just being a blonde with boobs. Halsey, who I only know as a pop star, does really well in this role, this being her second dramatic piece, outside of voice work. Apparently Paul Walter Hauser is the indie guy of the moment, or so the movie blogs say, and while this role doesn't give him much, there is something there. 

Final note. This is one of Eric Dane's final movies, before passing away from ALS this year, only a year after he announced his diagnosis. He went downhill fast. I knew him mostly for a few thriller TV shows, but he always had a very American Guy presence about him. I don't have the courage to watch his episode of Netflix's Famous Last Words but I can imagine they were powerful words.