It is indicative of Hollywood's strange and frequently unfathomable logic that Scott Silver, writer-director of the pretentious, cliché-ridden indie streetwalker epic Johns, was hired to write and direct the big-screen version of The Mod Squad. What exactly won Silver this gig? Was it the virtuoso use of camera work in the scene in Johns in which David Arquette's shoes are stolen? The gripping subplot in which Arquette and fellow hustler Lukas Haas plot to leave the mean streets of L.A. and get jobs as lifeguards in Branson, Missouri? Silver's master stroke of naming nearly everyone in the film John? Whatever it was, you can only hope Silver brings the same kind of high-energy pyrotechnics to The Mod Squad that he brought to Johns. Johns stars Arquette and Haas as a pair of male prostitutes who long to leave their gritty pasts behind, but who must first come up with enough cash to pay off a drug dealer to whom Arquette owes money. A mawkish mixture of Midnight Cowboy, O. Henry, and My Own Private Idaho, Johns aims for a Gus Van Sant-like mixture of scuzzy drama and gently surrealistic whimsy, but mostly just succeeds at being silly and pretentious. For starters, the main characters are woefully implausible. True, Haas is something of a hustling neophyte, but he's so naïve that he doesn't seem to realize that an essential element of being a male prostitute involves a willingness to exchange sex for money. There's a scene in which Haas is picked up by an old man, but when the elder gentleman requests some sort of sexual favor, Haas responds with a mixture of surprise and disgust. It all raises the question of what it is Haas thinks prostitutes get paid to do. Drive around in people's cars? Make small talk? Haas never does have sex with a john onscreen, but unfortunately, Arquette does, leading to a slew of painful scenes in which he is fondled by a series of character actors, including both Arliss Howard and still-struggling '70s icon Elliott Gould.