“Deep thinking’s overrated.”

With Americana, writer-director Tony Tost delivers a compelling neo-Western thriller in the mold of Taylor Sheridan’s work (Wind River [2017], Yellowstone [2018–2024]).

Unfolding a nonlinear story in heartland America involving a lovelorn military vet (Paul Walter Hauser), a stammering diner waitress who dreams of being a singer in Nashville (Sydney Sweeney), an unconscionable thug (Eric Dane), his damaged girlfriend (Halsey) and her preteen son who believes he is the reincarnation of Sitting Bull (Gavin Maddox Bergman), a militant-revolutionary Native American (Zahn McClarnon), and an unscrupulous antiques dealer (Simon Rex), all, for a variety of reasons, seeking to possess a ghost shirt sacred to the Lakota people, which, as the story begins, is owned by a wealthy local collector (Toby Huss), Tost does much to impress as the story’s tension mounts, leaving space amidst his sweeping vistas and bursts of ferocity for wistful montages and melancholic character moments illuminating the sorry lives of the final showdown’s participants. He does well with the emotional stakes and coaxes appropriately weighty performances out of his principal cast.

But he strives to reach beyond the basic parameters of his story, not only to lasso some large and uncomfortable themes but to craft a borderline absurdist black comedy around his bleak narrative in the realm of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994) or the Coen brothers’ Fargo (1996). While one can forgive the partial fulfillment of Tost’s lofty thematic ambitions, the pastiche aspect of the film, with its f-bombs, rampant needle drops, chapter titles, flashbacks, and references to Ghostface Killah and Loretta Lynn, though not entirely misguided, shows considerable strain, ironically working best during an obnoxious monologue on the American imagination that literally puts a character to sleep.

In any case, it’s a fine thriller, anchored by good acting, that remains tense through its climax at the compound of a wicked religious cult. And with Tarantino putting off making that tenth and final film and the Coens no longer working together, there’s nothing wrong with a cover band taking the stage. One hopes that Tost, heretofore confined to television (Damnation [2017–2018]), gets an opportunity to improve on this effort.