Sydney Sweeney has good jeans in Americana. But it’s her awkward, affected stammering that’s emblematic of this Western crime comedy, de-emphasis on the latter, as Tony Tost’s feature debut puts minimal effort into being amusing.

In theaters Aug. 15, two-and-a-half years after it premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival, Americana is a ’90s-era sub-Tarantino plotting is the stock and trade of this indie effort, in which Sweeney’s waitress crosses paths with a collection of naïve sweeties and nefarious ne’er-do-wells, all of whom have their eyes set on a priceless Native American artifact.

Following a playbook pioneered (and endlessly plagiarized) decades ago, it’s a sluggish and monotonous country-ified neo-noir that fails to innovate and, worse, to utilize its magnetic leading

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