A Gun, A Car, A Blonde

Cowritten by Thornton's writing partner Tom Epperson (and director Stefani Ames), and starring alumni of their One False Move (Metzler) and Thornton's Sling Blade (Ritter), A Gun, A Car, A Blonde, an inept straight-to-tape drama-spoof feels more like a class reunion than a movie.

Metzler's cancer-stricken, wheelchair-riding film-noir buff escapes his pain by daydreaming that he's a tough private eye who narrates his adventures in hard-bitten second-person voiceover — Bright Lights, Walt Mitty, basically. The real-life scenes (in color) are schmaltzy and tiresome, and the fantasy scenes (in B&W) are a facile parody of a genre that's already been ridiculed to oblivion and back. A mess, a mistake, an ordeal. D

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