American Night

American Night

There are (at least) two ways to read Alessio Della Valle’s “American Night,” an ill-fated post-modern crime drama set in and around a private art gallery owned by indecisive critic John Kaplan (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) and bankrolled by untalented artist cum mobster Michael Rubino (Emile Hirsch). You could see this as a limp spoof of all the other decades late “Pulp Fiction” imitators that ape only the surface level traits of Quentin Tarantino’s now iconic 1994 movie its jaunty cynicism and winking allusive-ness, but not its actual style.

Or you could regard “American Night” as less of a critique than a reflection on American pop art after Andy Warhol, and now Tarantino. That might seem uncharitable, but there’s not much room for charity in a movie where Hirsch’s kitschy villain takes his sweet time recounting the old scorpion and frog parable, which cinephiles may remember from Orson Welles’ “Mr. Arkadin” (1955).

You don’t need to know that story going in order to be underwhelmed by its re-presentation here, especially since this is the type of movie where eventually Michael shaves off his hair to reveal a big-ass scorpion tattoo on the side of his head. Is that over-the-top gesture supposed to be funny or dramatic? Either way, Hirsch’s seething baddie just looks sad.

The creators of “American Night” often go out of their way to show that they’re thinking about their story in relation to other pop culture touchstones, like the bartender who cosplays as Kurt Cobain when he posed for Jesse Frohmann’s camera. You can tell a lot about this movie based on its flashy three part structure. A buzzing neon sign introduces the first chapter’s title: “Art + Life.” That’s also the second chapter’s title, but now that on screen title is shown backwards, as if we were looking at it from inside John Kaplan’s art gallery.

A bullet goes through the glass window that separates us from this very literal sign. We are now theoretically on the other side of the brittle looking glass that divides one kind of pop art from another. Sadly “American Night” often reproduces without significantly expanding upon a bunch of post-Tarantino clichés about individualism, free will and the value of art in a world run by shallow gangsters and doofy try-hards.

What’s wrong with “American Night” is a difficult question to answer because many of its ideas are as hollow and superficial as its characters. Everybody’s in debt and nobody’s fulfilled. But Kaplan needs to get his gallery off the ground, so he has found himself caught between two capricious mob bosses, Lord Samuel Morgan (Michael Madsen) and Rubino. Hirsch has more scenes than Madsen, so you might think that there’s more to his baddy’s insecurities.

After all, Michael has a judgmental family (biological and mob) and some aspirational thoughts about art’s worth. He also has an incredibly kitschy sense of style: his paintings involve Jackson Pollock-style dripping mixed with real (or “real”) bullet holes made by real guns, framed by empty space. What does it mean? Not much!

There are other characters worth mentioning, including clumsy courier Shaky (Fortunato Cerlino) and hapless stuntman Vincent (Jeremy Piven), but those guys only exist to set up the inevitable conflict between John and Michael, both of whom are circling the same Andy Warhol painting Michael by choice, John by accident.

Everyone in “American Night” is defined solely by their weirdness, which is easier to forgive when it comes to minor characters like Shaky, whose narcolepsy kicks in at narratively convenient times; or Vincent, who fixates on Bruce Lee’s famous “Be water” speech to explain his own lack of success; or even Kaplan himself (“I don’t want anybody criticizing my art”). Unfortunately John and Michael are just as boring without these quirks: The former drifts through one love affair after another while the latter rants about how important art is despite never demonstrating any skills beyond this statement.

The biggest problem with movies that are as shallow and gassy as “American Night” is that there’s a lot signified, but not much emotionally or intellectually conveyed. What’s the functional difference between John and Michael’s respective worldviews? Yes, Michael’s paintings look dumb, but John’s TED Talk style defense of universal necessity of art “this is what makes us human” isn’t much more inspiring, nor are the passionless sex scenes that are supposed to set Rhys Meyers’ antihero protagonist apart from Hirsch’s impotent antagonist.

There is no conflict driving them from one episodic encounter to another, so we’re stuck watching a lot of loud empty people act like covered wagons in the desert: They circle each other and their own hapless luckless lives while going nowhere. You could interpret “American Night” however you want, but it will never be more or less than what it appears to be which isn’t very much.

Watch American Night For Free On Gomovies.