Octane

Sid (Joe Carnahan) and Bob (Dan Leis) are a couple of fast-talking but nonetheless incompetent car salesmen who are in debt up to their necks and have just been served a notice evicting them from their lot. Salvation arrives in the form of a burgundy Pontiac Le Mans convertible; all they have to do is watch it for two days and they'll get paid $250,000. But once they have the car on their hands, the whole thing starts to smell like a setup, and they get second thoughts. Blood, Guts, Bullets & Octane owes a sizable debt to Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction) and David Mamet (Glengarry Glen Ross, House of Games), which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Made on the cheap--the visual quality varies and half the crew is also in the cast, including writer-director-editor Carnahan)--Blood, Guts, Bullets & Octane cuts back and forth in time with energy, shifting between crooks blowing each other away and methodical FBI agents tracking them down. Scenes are framed by titles like "White Trash Trigger" and "Coldblooded Hotheads." In the end it amounts to little more than a lurid shaggy dog story, but fans of gunplay and pop-culture quips will have a good time along the way. --Bret Fetzer