A disparate group of quirky characters battle for ownership of a valuable Lakota artifact. And many die for the chance. This neo-Western is Tarantino-esque and nods at friendship and family ties. But it’s far from a moral message. And the R-rated narrative here is packed with extreme profanity and bloody violence.
In a dusty stretch of Middle American nowhere, life can be challenging.
Mandy, for instance, must deal with her abusive, aggressive boyfriend, Dillon. He’s not a great guy, and it’s not a great situation. But she’s got to have someplace where she and Calvin (her son, who believes he is the reincarnation of the Lakota Chief Sitting Bull) can stay. Currently, Dillon is the only option.
Lefty, on the other hand, has a house all his own that he’d like to share. In that pursuit, he’s proposed to three different women this year alone. They’ve all been a bust. Now Lefty’s working on his proposal for number four. They’ve been going out for all of two weeks.
Listening to Lefty as he practices his speech, is a waitress, Penny Jo. She’s pretty and sweet, but she has such a prominent stammer that she’s not much of an expert on love—or even casual conversation, for that matter. But if she had her druthers, she’d be off to Nashville and working on a singing career. Singing? That she can do.
What do all these people have in common? Well, besides the middle-of-nowhere connection and sadness, not much. But that’s about to change.
A slick guy named Roy Lee Dean soon blows into town with money to spread around. He wants a certain Native American artifact owned by a certain rich local resident. It’s worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $500,000 dollars, and Roy needs someone to steal it.
Dillon knows how to do that. And he doesn’t care who he has to kill to make it happen. Of course, Mandy, Lefty and Penny Jo all overhear this plot, and they’re interested in some easy cash, too. I mean, just think what a couple grand might accomplish.
But Dillon’s smash, shoot and grab plan soon runs into some unexpected roadblocks. For instance, did I mention that a local tribal army wants the prized Lokota artifact, too?
Turns out there’s a lot going on out here in middle of nowhere after all.
Lefty and Penny Jo initially meet at the diner where she works, where Lefty recites his planned proposal for another woman. He notes that Penny might not have even talked to him if she didn’t have a bad speech impediment, and she admits that may be true. But that honest beginning soon blossoms into a friendship. He tells her that if they get any money from their plan, she can have it all to chase her dream. Later, they both put their own lives on the line for the other.
Mandy is forced to leave her son Calvin behind when he refuses to go with her. But she later pleads with him to come back with her. In light of his reincarnation beliefs (more on that below), Calvin tells her that his mother died many years ago. And Mandy has to admit that in real life, that was true as well. Eventually, Cal’s eyes are opened to the falseness of his reincarnation delusion. The two are reunited and they cling to each other, murmuring words of love.
As mentioned, Calvin believes he is the reincarnation of Sitting Bull. “I’ve traveled down through centuries of death,” he intones. And he notes that if anything happened to him, “This vessel can be discarded for another.”
Cal repeatedly talks to others about his place being with the Lakota people. But Lakota tribe members reject his talk as cultural appropriation and spiritual nonsense.
We hear that some Lakota believe someday Jesus would return to “eradicate the white man.” A song in the movie’s soundtrack talks about someone wondering if she’s an angel or a devil.
Mandy returns home to her father’s compound, which we discover is also home to a cloistered religious cult. The men there are heavy handed and treat the women as servants. Women are forbidden from wearing jewelry or makeup. And when one woman picks up an item that she “shouldn’t” have, one of the men proclaims, “Heaven forbids it!”
A guy snidely wishes he was gay, so that he wouldn’t have to depend upon women for sexual release.
When Mandy returns to the compound, the camera watches as she removes clothes down to her underwear. Later she’s asked to help a male visitor relax by massaging his shoulders and chest. Someone uses a crude allusion to a particular sexual activity.
We later find out that the cult led by Mandy’s father sold time with its female members to local men. We see a police officer in uniform step out of a locked room after one such “meeting” with one of the young women. Mandy was part of past sexual trafficking, too, and Calvin was conceived because of this sexual abuse.
There’s quite a bit of bloodletting on display or spoken about throughout Americana, too.
Lefty, for instance, tells Penny that he hit an IED while serving in the military. And he shows her the surgery scar on his head. Mandy hits someone on the head with a hammer, leaving him bloody on the floor. A couple of gunmen walk into a dinner party and shoot the occupants point-blank with silenced revolvers. One guy writhes on the floor bleeding, before being killed.
Several men are hit with arrows in the chest and upper body. In fact, young Cal shoots one victim in the throat with his handmade bow and watches as his target slumps down and slowly dies. During a large shootout between several groups, pistols, automatic weapons and arrows leave many men dead or in agony on the ground. A guy is stabbed in the chest repeatedly with a small blade.
Penny is viciously beaten to the ground, leaving a bleeding gash on her face. One individual is rescued from battle but badly wounded. We watch him gasp for air while talking as he slowly dies.
The dialogue contains more than 50 f-words and some 20 s-words, along with a handful of uses each of “a–,” “a–hole,” “b–ch” and “h—.”
Jesus and God’s names are both abused a total of 15 times (eight of those blending God with “d–n”).
Lefty and Penny Jo meet at a local bar and drink together. We see them drinking beer at his house, too. People at a dinner party sip wine and some get rather inebriated. In fact, one tipsy woman passes out.
A man smokes a cigarette.
Penny’s mom cruelly teases her about her thick stammer.
In Americana, writer and director Tony Tost has created a movie that seemingly represents his view of the American heartland.
Through chapter-based story perspectives, Tost delivers a Tarantino-esque, neo-western crime drama. It’s packed with quirky characters; carnival sideshow-like interactions; a long-winded MacGuffin chase; and enough profusely foul language and bloody shootout violence to choke a horse.
That said, the film’s actors, in particular Sydney Sweeney, Paul Walter Hauser and Halsey, also effectively embody their beleaguered characters and wring something heartfelt and sympathetic from them.
Of course, skillful acting or not, there’s still all that profanity and arrow-to-the-throat goop to contend with. And that’s a messy mount to saddle indeed.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
