Weirdsville

Imagine if the stoner character played by Steve Zahn from Soderbergh’s ‘Out of Sight’ landed his own spin-off movie and it ran a bit like ‘The Big Lebowski’ minus the acerbic tone, labyrinthine plot and cine-literate script. You may end up with something like ‘Weirdsville’, a knowingly dishevelled US indie caper-comedy from the director who turned Christian Slater into a rebellious pirate DJ in ‘Pump Up the Volume’. Dexter (Scott Speedman) and Royce (Wes Bentley) are a pair of dim-witted junkies who owe money to an eccentric local kingpin who has threatened to cut off their thumbs if they don’t pay. Their foolish attempts to acquire the cash lead to all manner of madcap nonsense involving preppy Satan worshipers, dwarf battle re-enactors and a new-age internet entrepreneur with an icicle lodged in his brain. While the film is not without charm and the odd inspired line (‘Marshall McLuhan? Isn’t he the guy that started the Sex Pistols?’) the paper-thin characters make it feel less like a rounded feature and more like a TV pilot with the promise of more adventures to come.