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Back in the mid-1990s, there was no hotter filmmaker out there than Quentin Tarantino. The mainstream success of 1994's Pulp Fiction suddenly made people want to review his older work, and it launched a string of movies that tried to emulate the Tarantino style of slick action coupled with heady dialogue and memorable characters. The 1997 Kiefer Sutherland vehicle Truth or Consequences, N.M. is one such film that has been dismissed as a poor substitution for Tarantino. After finally getting around to renting the DVD last weekend, I tend to agree with that assessment.

Truth or Consequences, N.M. was the first film directed by Sutherland, who was more famous at that time for playing the villain in teen flicks such as Stand By Me and The Lost Boys than for his moviemaking prowess. At any rate, he got behind the lens for Truth or Consequences, a basic robbery-gone-wrong movie that will instantly take fans back to the decade where those kinds of plots were everywhere.

Vincent Gallo stars as Raymond Lembecke, a low-level drug dealer who did two years in the pen after refusing to roll over on Eddie Grillo (played by John C. McGinley), the guy above him. When Raymond gets out of prison, he figures that Eddie owes him something big for taking the fall like that, so he's disappointed when all Eddie offers him is a job in a warehouse moving boxes around. Raymond isn't going to stand for that, so he comes up with a plan to rob Eddie of a large shipment of heroin. Raymond will steal the drugs, sell them, and then run off with the money.

But the plan was just bad news right from the beginning. First of all, the warehouse was supposed to be empty when Raymond and his crew went in for the score. But Eddie and another guy were in there, which of course led to a confrontation. Second, Raymond's crew wasn't exactly made up of the best thugs around. He was working with Curtis (Sutherland) and Marcus (Mykelti Williamson), as well as with his girlfriend Addy (Kim Dickens). Curtis turned out to be a trigger-happy psycho who likes to shoot first and ask questions later. So when Eddie and his friend started threatening Raymond for having the audacity to come in there and try to steal from them, Curtis shot them. That led to the third thing that went wrong: the guy with Eddie turned out to be an undercover DEA agent and he was wearing a wire!

Raymond and his gang grabbed the suitcase full of drugs and took off. The police just barely miss nabbing them at the beginning there, so the rest of the film follows Raymond and his gang as they attempt to elude the cops and sell the drugs to the highest bidder. Unfortunately, everything continues to go wrong -- from picking up hostages to upsetting the mafia -- which leads to a final showdown in the town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.

As you can see, the plot of Truth or Consequences, N.M. shouldn't be anything new to anyone who watched other Tarantino-inspired films a decade ago. There weren't any interesting twists, turns, or surprises along the way and you'll probably be able to predict nearly everything that happens.

The only thing that could have saved this movie was the acting, but unfortunately, the talented cast didn't come through in this respect. Maybe it's because I've gotten so used to seeing Kiefer Sutherland play one of the good guys (as Jack Bauer on the TV series 24), but it was really jarring to watch him play Curtis. His acting was so over-the-top that it came off as clownish and annoying. Some people have said that Sutherland's performance was one of the highlights of the movie, but I didn't find that to be the case at all. This was one of the few films in which I thought Sutherland's presence detracted from the overall product.

The other cast members did ok with the material, but again, there wasn't a knockout performance that could make the viewer forget how trite the screenplay was.

Truth or Consequences, N.M. was one of those middle-of-the-road movies for me. I didn't particularly like it, but I didn't hate it either. If you see it, it won't be a complete waste of time. If you skip it, you won't be missing much.