‘Americana’ rides the Sydney Sweeney controversy in search of a point

“Americana” — 1.5 stars

The crowded western crime noir “Americana” has had a curious journey to your local theater.

Filmed in early 2022 and premiered at the SXSW festival in 2023, it’s getting a theatrical release on the heels of a headline-grabbing controversy surrounding Sydney Sweeney and a jeans ad she did for American Eagle. Accordingly, Sweeney, who has made a name for herself on TV’s “White Lotus” and “Euphoria,” is front and center in the movie’s publicity materials, even if she’s one of many characters here and not the most important one. And even if, it has to be said, she gives the weakest performance in the movie.

Written and directed by Tony Tost, a successful TV writer-producer (“Poker Face,” “Damnation”) making his big-screen debut, “Americana” is very much a sun-parched “Fargo” wannabe with a side helping of Tarantino. The plot features a motley assortment of colorful characters chasing after a valuable Native American artifact, a high body count and a screenplay that wrings every bit of wryness from the dialogue until it’s just about wrung out. It’s the kind of movie that drops references to political theorists Frantz Fanon, Slavoj Zizek and Karl Marx — in one exchange of dialogue, no less! — in ways that reflect less on the people saying the lines than the person writing them.

But “Americana” also makes time to give the sly character actor Paul Walter Hauser (“Richard Jewell,” “The Naked Gun”) something close to a lead role, and for that we must be thankful. Hauser plays Lefty Ledbetter — the joke is that he’s right-handed — a woebegone cowpoke with a tendency to propose to women on the third date. Sweeney plays Penny Jo, a stuttering diner waitress in their small South Dakota town who gets wind of a deal going down and persuades Lefty to join with her in getting a piece of the action.

The deal involves a priceless Native American “ghost shirt,” and the web of extra-colorful folks trying to cash in on it includes a local bigwig named Roy Lee Dean (Simon Rex of “Red Rocket”), a nasty hired killer named Dillon (Eric Dane) and his slightly more ethical accomplice (Joe Adler), the hired killer’s girlfriend Mandy (pop singer Halsey), Mandy’s young son, Calvin (Gavin Maddox Bergman) — the kid insists he’s the reincarnation of Sitting Bull, and maybe he is — and a pair of loose-limbed Native American activists, Ghost Eye (Zahn McClarnon) and Hank (Derek Hinkey).

There are double-crosses and flashbacks, digressive “Pulp Fiction”-style monologues and a casual attitude toward people getting killed that feels more like a pose than a commitment. On the plus side, the audience is reminded of how lethal a bow and arrow can be, and “Americana” picks up in the home stretch, as all the characters converge on a desert compound run by a survivalist patriarch (Christopher Kriesa) and his tradwives.

By then, Halsey’s Mandy has emerged as the first of the cast’s equals, and she gives good gumption in a satisfyingly violent settling of scores.

The performances in general are professional, which has the effect of making Sweeney look like the worst of equals. She never makes Penny Jo’s stammer believable as more than an actorly affectation — it’s not clear why the character has a stutter in the first place — and her limp line-readings make it difficult to accept that this hash-slinging sweetie pie would suddenly decide to go criminal. Sweeney seems to be channeling the spirit of the late Shelley Duvall here, but Duvall had a moonbeam presence that couldn’t be imitated — it simply was.

“Deep thinking’s overrated,” says one character in “Americana,” and that’s true enough when it comes to crime movies and westerns. On a scene-by-scene basis, the film’s entertaining enough (it’s certainly nicely shot by Nigel Bluck), but the rhythms are consistently off. Tost can’t match the oddball inspiration of his influences, and the results simply feel forced. “Americana” is trying too hard to be a Coen brothers movie — ironically, Ethan Coen’s own desert noir, “Honey, Don’t” opens next week and is weird enough to make this one look like a documentary — but we’ll wait until Tony Tost makes a Tony Tost movie.

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Rated R for violence, language throughout, some sexual references. 107 minutes.