Americana (2025) Review!!

Synopsis – The lives of local outsiders and outcasts violently intertwine when a rare Lakota Ghost shirt falls onto the black market in a small South Dakota town.

My Take – Indeed, such has been the influence of Coen Brothers (Fargo, No Country for Old Men) and Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) that a generation of aspiring filmmakers continue to take inspiration by their stylistic approaches to tell their own stories. Something which was quite visible in recent ensemble neo-noirs affairs like Free Fire (2016), Bad Times at the El Royale (2018), and The Last Stop in Yuma County (2023).

The latest to bolt out of the door and mimic their style is this first feature from writer-director Tony Tost, a published poet who is best known for creating the neo-western series ‘Damnation‘ and for showrunning the second season of ‘Poker Face‘.

Filmed in 2023, following which it found itself trapped in limbo for two years amid the Bron bankruptcy, the film can be best described as a hybrid between modern western and crime thriller, filled with peculiar characters and themes that explore both ancient and contemporary traditions.

And backed by a handful of strong moments, from darkly funny beats to entertaining shootouts and flashes of compelling character work, the film works well enough as a charmer, even if it never fully comes together as a truly cohesive whole.

Mainly as it is aiming high with it scope and tackling a lot of themes like Indigenous treatment, women’s rights, abuse, and family devotion. It is simply too much for one film to carry and the result is messier. With just a bit more consistency in execution, this could easily have been one of the year’s most memorable films. Nevertheless, though the ambitious, doesn’t always succeed, director Tony Tost manages to bring all the qualities worth enjoying for genre fans.

The narrative, divided into five chapters marked with respective title cards and follows a group of characters connected by a central object: the legendary Lakota Ghost Shirt, a stolen Native American relic sold on the black market. Penny Jo Poplin (Sydney Sweeney), a timid waitress who dreams of becoming a country singer, and Lefty Ledbetter (Paul Walter Hauser), a big-hearted war veteran, join forces in an attempt to recover the artifact, after realizing how much it is worth.

Along the way they cross paths with dangerous figures such as Dillon (Eric Dane), a cold-blooded killer hired for the theft, and Roy Lee Dean (Simon Rex), a corrupt dealer of valuable Western antiquities.

Meanwhile, Dillon’s girlfriend, Mandy Starr (Halsey) struggles to escape a life of violence and a suffocating past, while her younger brother Cal (Gavin Maddox Bergman) believes himself to be the reincarnation of Native leader Sitting Bull, dedicating his life to returning the Ghost Shirt to the Lakota people.

In the midst of these entanglements, Ghost Eye (Zahn McClarnon), the leader of a revolutionary Native movement, who learns through young Cal that Mandy has the ghost shirt, and so he and his gang kidnap the boy in the hope of trading him for the shirt, which they also want.

The chapter division, while visually clear, doesn’t add much to the overall experience. Apart from a small chronological detour, the first chapter is actually the end of the third and the structure seems designed mainly to introduce new characters more assertively. This mosaic of characters, each with a well-defined arc, sustains the narrative more than the MacGuffin itself. The Ghost Shirt is important as a symbol of struggle, of memory, of the power attributed to tradition, but what truly holds attention are the personal stories.

Even though many of these arcs end tragically, the emotional impact lingers, leaving a stronger impression than the bursts of violence or action driving the plot. Without a doubt, “the plan gone wrong” premise has an inherent appeal, and writer-director Tony Tost makes the most of it in its introductions, with quirky and sharply defined characters that make their eventual collisions satisfying.

The action scenes are solid enough, and there are plenty of moments of humor that land. Films like this invariably end in a ridiculously high body count, and this one is no exception.

More interesting are the genre-bending writer-director Tost attempts, even if it doesn’t always land with the same effectiveness. The attempts at social commentary through comedic or ironic touches don’t always integrate organically. Still, the film finds a surprising harmony between the weight of its themes and the lightness it sometimes embraces, even if this duality makes the darker ending all the more unsettling.

While if it doesn’t particularly reinvent the Western, it at least looks and sounds great. David Fleming’s score delivers two instantly memorable themes, and Nigel Bluck’s cinematography builds tension in the shootouts while capturing beautiful landscapes with effective compositions.

Performance wise, Sydney Sweeney is a mostly convincing as a character who stutters, though she still appears too glamorous for the role. Paul Walter Hauser brings the same level of earnestness he always brings. Surprisingly, it is the chemistry between Sweeney and Hauser that is palpable, filled with tenderness and authenticity, bringing the film a warmth that contrasts with the brutality surrounding them.

Multi-platinum singer-songwriter Halsey in her first dramatic role delivers a striking turn that sees her easily holding her own with top-liners. Simon Rex, Zahn McClarnon, Eric Dane, Derek Hinkey, Toby Huss and Harriet Sanson Harris are effective in their supportive turns, while Gavin Maddox Bergman brings a cutesy child-actorly quality to his character. On the whole, ‘Americana‘ is charming genre-blurring contemporary western that manages to deliver qualities worth enjoying.