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This author is old enough to remember a very particular period of cinema history that Jonathan Eusebio's new crime-comedy/not-quite-a-romance "Love Hurts" appears to be aping. In the wake of Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction," way back in 1994, numerous movies began to appear to feature flippant, violent characters, their mouths full of pop culture references, usually becoming embroiled with byzantine organized crime plots, brutal assassinations, or other acts of bone-crunching mayhem. These films ratcheted up the bloodshed, but kept characters whimsical. The genre's stars were too cool to be terrified by gun battles, and would murder with impunity, only to return to a conversation about movies, fast food, or some sort of personal quirk. Quirkiness was the guiding ethos of the era.

Some were comedic, others downbeat, but all belonged to the Post-Pulp era. "Goodbye Lover," "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels," "2 Days in the Valley," "Truth or Consequences, Nm,...

Sometimes it can be fun to watch a skillful band cover songs. Tony Tost’s Americana is precisely that: an ode to the drive-in B-movie which in turn influenced filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, who in turn influenced a generation of filmmakers making quirky violent ensemble films with scrambled chronologies. What’s new is old again and Americana, influenced by films from the 1970s, feels more like a film from the 1990s with notes of Allison Anders’ Gas Food Lodging, David Lynch’s Wild at Heart, and the Kiefer Sutherland-directed neo-noir Truth or Consequences, N.M. The result, thanks in part to a compelling cast, elevates this material past the cinematic equivalent of the local dad band playing Springsteen covers at the corner bar on a Saturday night.

Americana is divided into chapter. In the first, “Old New West,” we’re introduced to Cal (Gavin Maddox Bergman), a caucasian boy who grew...