AMERICANA is an ensemble crime movie set in rural South Dakota and Wyoming, where regular, likable doofuses clash with dangerous, organized crime doofuses. It definitely falls into the category of contemporary westerns (complete with a siege), but it might also be fair to say it’s in somewhat of a ‘90s post-Tarantino indie crime movie vein. Only in a good way, I’d say. Not a copycat. It’s a good variation on a clever but unpretentious story with some violence, some laughs, a good cast playing colorful characters, and even some interesting themes running through it. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

It’s divided into parts with titles, introducing different characters, and in the second one we see a living person who died in the first chapter, so we know it can be non-linear. But that turns out to be a one time deal – part 1 is a flash forward that establishes the tone and tips us off not to worry too much about one particularly scary guy. But there will be plenty of others to look out for.

The story revolves around the theft of a valuable Lakota artifact called a ghost shirt, and then various parties trying to get ahold of it when they hear how valuable it is. We first see it in the glass display case of bloviating rich asshole Pendleton Duvall (Toby Huss, NUTCRACKERS), who condescendingly lectures his bored house guests about its importance before masked gunmen break in to take it from him. They work for local wild west museum operator Roy Lee Dean (Simon Rex, RISE: BLOOD HUNTER), who loves cowboy hats and bolo ties, talks about “heritage” in a way I’m not so comfortable with, and is willing to have people killed to get this thing.

If I were to choose who the main characters are I’d go with the pairing of Lefty Ledbetter (Paul Walter Hauser, RICHARD JEWELL) and Penny Jo Poplin (Sydney Sweeney, THE MARTIAL ARTS KID), respectively a lovelorn loser and a diner waitress who befriends him after his latest failed marriage proposal. Though she’s an adorable freckled sweetheart, Penny Jo’s stammer makes her timid and largely ignored, and no one knows that she’s secretly a songwriter and dreams of moving to Nashville. When she overhears some customers talking about stealing the ghost shirt she convinces Lefty to help her intercept it.

But actually the first character we meet is Cal Starr (Gavin Maddox Bergman), a white kid who has become obsessed with Native American culture from watching old westerns on TV (they must still have cable) and now insists he’s the reincarnation of Sitting Bull. There’s an interesting moment when his mom’s asshole boyfriend Dillon (Eric Dane, X-MEN: THE LAST STAND), who’s one of Dean’s goons, tells him to “Knock that shit off,” and I assumed it was out of racism until he added “It’s offensive.” Anyway, when Cal’s troubled mother Mandy (Halsey, MAXXXINE) gets the drop on Dillon and runs off with the ghost shirt, the kid insists he has to stay behind with “my people,” and then he immediately gets into trouble.

As I alluded to earlier there are things that could be considered Tarantino-isms here, but tonally it’s very different, and would never seem like an imitator. Remember decades ago when part of the Tarantino trademark was characters talking about pop culture, and then when other writers tried to do that it was painful? Luckily it’s not a formula anymore. Here there are a handful of times where a movie or actor is mentioned somewhat randomly, and every one of them made me laugh. I might be the target audience though.

Some of these type of stories are gonna take a wild turn that couldn’t really be predicted – the PULP FICTION pawn shop basement, you could say. Here it’s when Mandy seeks shelter from the family she ran away from. She prefers kind of a Joan Jett look, but her controlling father Hiram (Christopher Kriesa, THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE) won’t let her wear pants or makeup when she enters his compound, that’s how backwards he is. I was thinking they were some kind of Amish type belief system with extra misogyny, but it turns out to be much worse than that.

I read that it was filmed under the name NATIONAL ANTHEM. That’s kinda good but the final title works so well – you gotta consider the usual meaning of the word and then the idea of using it for an important piece of Native Americana, and what that says about what we do or do not consider America. (And as a bonus it sort of fits the type of music Penny Jo and the soundtrack favor.) It’s obviously very intentional that we’ve got a bunch of mostly white characters obsessed with cowboy imagery treating this shirt as a piece of treasure. Even when they acknowledge its historical meaning they look like assholes. Late in the game the story finally shifts to a Native perspective when word about the shirt gets to a group of militants led by Ghost Eye (Zahn McClarnon, MEKKO). It’s a nice dramatic conflict because I automatically root for these guys, but they’re willing to hurt some of the other characters who I like.

Of course I’ve been thrilled by any McClarnon sightings since that one season of Fargo he stole, and then I found out how funny and lovable he could be when he played Big on Reservation Dogs. This is a good mix of those talents, as Ghost Eye is no teddy bear but has some very funny reactions to the little white kid who claims to be Sitting Bull.

By now I cannot deny I am a Sydney Sweeney fan. I really liked her in IMMACULATE and then I watched her earlier movie with the same director, THE VOYEURS and more recently REALITY, where she played Reality Winner. This is another really good one to add to the list – anyone playing a character who stammers so much would run the risk of overdoing it, but she makes it feel natural and part of a distinct character I really rooted for. And the more clear it became that bad things would happen to good people in this I had to fear for her. Let that girl be safe.

Yeah, this one is much more violent than I expected. Bullets, arrows, screwdrivers – quite a few things piercing flesh. It felt slightly excessive to me, not in explicitness, just in volume. On the other hand I don’t think it really makes light of violence. The laughs come from the characters.

Knowing it was a crime movie starring Sweeney and Hauser was what drew me to this one. They’re a good unlikely duo – they’re both very good at playing dumb but sweet, or seems dumb but isn’t. I found their friendship or whatever it is very sweet. Lefty has a misguided notion of manly nobility, but it comes through for once.

I recognized the name of writer/director Tony Tost from the credits of Poker Face – he was the showrunner for season 2, and wrote the John-Dahl-directed episode where Rex plays an aging Minor League pitcher involved in a betting scandal. Before that he worked on Longmire and The Terror and created Damnation, and this is his first movie. But reading about him afterwards I learned that his background is more interesting than just “TV guy moving into features.”

First of all, I should note that the high body count had me thinking he was a young guy. Nothing against it, but I feel like when I was a young guy I would’ve been more enthusiastic about killing off everybody in a movie. Well, I was wrong, unless exactly one month younger than me counts as “a young guy.” He grew up living in trailers in Enumclaw, Washington, making him one of the most famous people from Enumclaw after several athletes and obviously the guy who got fucked to death by the horse.

What’s unusual though is that he got a Ph.D., wrote a couple books of poetry (the first one won the 2003 Walt Whitman Award), founded a poetry magazine, and (most interesting to me) wrote the 33 1/3 book on Johnny Cash’s American Recordings, which has apparently been acclaimed as a work of art in its own right. I should read that then. I like that album.

Although AMERICANA was mostly ignored in theaters this year and got pulled into some culture war bullshit involving Sydney Sweeney and a jeans commercial (hopefully by the time you read this there is no memory of the ridiculous incident), it debuted at South By Southwest in 2023, where it was well received. As of this writing it’s on disc and on VOD, but if you don’t want to spring for that at least remember it when it pops up on one of the services. I really think it’s worth a look.