The 51st State

Bearing a wealth of guns, drugs, quirky characters and fiery chase scenes, this desperately wants to be a cool, slick, suave black comedy in the same vein as Pulp Fiction or Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. With none of the panache, authenticity, or cornerstone performances that made its forefathers into modern classics, though, it comes off as a weak, uncertain impersonation instead. The plot plays it loose and loopy, with characters losing sight of their own motivations between set changes, and becomes especially double-cross happy as the credits near. Samuel L. Jackson plays the only part of note, as nothing more than his standard blue-lipped hardass, while Emily Mortimer is thoroughly unconvincing as a cold-blooded killer and Meat Loaf occupies the bizarre role of a drug-dealing Macguffin who constantly speaks in the third-person. Forgettable, shallow and bland.