The old desperate actor's adage, "I'd kill for that part," is taken literally and insipidly in Frogs For Snakes, yet another shapeless and gratuitous cycle of detached shootings and meta-cinematics designed to make audiences suffer for having enjoyed Pulp Fiction. A sturdy presence amid an assortment of amateur-hour performances, Barbara Hershey stars as the most talented member of an acting troupe working under Robbie Coltrane, a gangster and part-time theatrical impresario. The others, in descending order of crumminess, include Ian Hart, Clarence Williams III, Ron Perlman, Debi Mazar, Harry Hamlin, and Lisa Marie, who adds an unintended postmodern layer by playing a bad actress badly. All moonlight as debt collectors for Coltrane, but when he begins casting for a new production of American Buffalo, they turn their guns on each other. The idea of an actor's stage being just as territorial as gangland turf is only a mild satiric premise, but writer-director Amos Poe (Alphabet City) continues to torture it to no discernible end. Killing for ambition's sake has made for a number of great black comedies, including Kind Hearts And Coronets (1949) and the more recent A Shock To The System (1990), both of which were tight and coolly methodical in skewering social mores. If Frogs For Snakes even has a target in mind, Poe's script is too open-ended and slack to hit it. Strung together like a series of failed improvisational sessions and uncompromised in the worst possible sense of the word, the film is no more illuminating than the glow watches certain to see frequent use by those unfortunate enough to witness it.