In a classic case of misleading advertising, the title and cover box of 1998's All Revved Up—originally, and more aptly, titled O.K. Garage—promise the unlikely spectacle of a rowdy gearhead action movie starring independent-film fixtures John Turturro and Lili Taylor. What the film delivers, however, is far more predictable: a quirky, low-budget romance so slight it's a wonder it didn't evaporate during the years it took to secure a video release. The directorial debut of Brandon Cole, who co-wrote Turturro's Mac and Illuminata, All Revved Up follows a short period in the ennui-filled existences of three not-so-beautiful losers: mercurial welder Turturro, schoolteacher Taylor, and Will Patton, an eccentric writer with a predilection for lizards. Like Hal Hartley's characters, the frustrated romantics of All Revved Up talk quite a bit but do precious little, expressing their feelings and desires in the most tortured, circuitous manner imaginable. While Cole's film aspires to the offbeat, deadpan romanticism of Hartley's best work, it lacks the low-key charm and dry humor that put Hartley ahead of the average stridently quirky indie auteur. Twee and self-satisfied, All Revved Up is stereotypical film-festival fodder, meant to be seen, digested, and forgotten about over the course of two hours. Even with three acting heavyweights at its center, Cole's film still feels amateurish and undernourished. As good as Taylor, Turturro, and Patton can be, all are hamstrung by sketchy characters and dialogue that's never as smart or endearing as it's intended to be. Although far from the gas-guzzling romp its title suggests, All Revved Up at least tangentially involves cars, in the form of a body shop Taylor suspects of ripping her off. The film itself remains perpetually stuck in neutral.