Feeling unaccountably nostalgic for the Pulp Fiction knockoffs of the mid- to late '90s? Then take a magical trip back in time with Who Is Cletis Tout?, a smug and convoluted action-comedy that doesn't allow an earnest moment to pass without reminding audiences that it's only a movie, so there's no point in caring about anything that happens in it. More than even the gratuitous violence and pop-culture references, this self-negating gesture may be the worst habit of Quentin Tarantino wannabes, who seem to forget that his characters are not merely mouthpieces for film-geek dialogue, but people with genuine conflicts and strong emotional trajectories. Faster than anyone can say Truth Or Consequences, N.M., writer-director Chris Ver Wiel listens in on a "Royale With Cheese" exchange between two dull-witted mob henchmen, who wonder why the backwoods rapists in Deliverance settled for Ned Beatty instead of waiting for Burt Reynolds to come down-river. What seems at first like a disposable gag with minor characters instead becomes a jumping-off point for Ver Wiel's Tinseltown hall of mirrors, led by Tim Allen as a movie-crazy hitman who dictates the story like an old-fashioned studio mogul. Nicknamed "Critical Jim" for his love of the classics and his withering opinions on today's movies—a postmodern device that backfires more than once—Allen gives mark Christian Slater a chance to pitch his story before Allen shoots him. Flashing back to 1977, Slater opens with a diamond heist masterminded by Richard Dreyfuss, who buried the gems and a family keepsake in a box by an old tree, where they would stay until he finished his prison term. While in jail, Dreyfuss befriends small-timer Slater, and promises him a share of the loot if he helps break them out. Needing an alias for the outside, Slater unwittingly chooses "Cletis Tout," the name of an amateur videographer who foolishly tried to extort the mob with a tape featuring the boss' son strangling a prostitute. During Slater's narration, Allen occasionally interrupts with script notes about where the story is headed, and when he demands a "classic femme fatale" love interest, Slater obliges with Dreyfuss' tough-talking daughter Portia de Rossi. Within the flashbacks, Cletis Tout might have been a workable crime caper after a few rewrites, but Ver Wiel hedges his bets by framing the whole thing like a movie-within-a-movie. By having Allen filter the story through old chestnuts such as Breakfast At Tiffany's, The Dirty Dozen, and The Great Escape, Ver Wiel not only makes the action seem artificial and weightless, but slavishly devoted to formula, too. In the absence of sincerity, Cletis Tout creates a vacuum that flushes out the entire story, leaving nothing but its own hollow cleverness.