Even though I enjoyed the 95 minutes, give or take, I’m not surprised that 2001’s Who Is Cletis Tout? slipped through the cracks and was immediately forgotten. What we have here is (an attempt at, or what is commonly characterized as) a comic take on the slippery criminal story told to in flashback a la The Usual Suspects, with Christian Slater in the Kevin Spacey role and Tim Allen(?!) in the Chazz Palminteri role, though Allen is a hit man rather than a cop.
But Cletis lacks the subtlety and elegance of that film’s story within a story, layered with lies and misdirection; instead we get something more along the lines of a criminal 1001 Nights where Slater tries, as Allen puts it, to make the hit man forget his mission in the grips of a terrific movie. Critical Jim, Allen’s character, is a classic movie fan and the script gives him mainly a combination of recognizable lines and studio exec chatter for his dialog. We open, for instance, to the closing scene of Breakfast at Tiffanys on a small TV and end with Allen spouting lines from it, and he also quotes The Dirty Dozen, Deliverance and The Great Escape. Even Slater’s natural resemblance to Jack Nicholson doesn’t go unnoticed by Allen.
Writer/director Chris Ver Wiel does an okay job overall, at least enough to keep me from hitting the delete button. Richard Dreyfuss, Portia de Rossi and Billy Connolly are not bad in supporting roles though RuPaul and Peter Macneil don’t do much for me. Allen doesn’t quite have the mien, if I’m using that word correctly, for his role while Slater does a bit better, but then he also has a more active role.
mildly recommended
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