‘Plump Fiction’ Thin on Satire, Topicality

Quentin Tarantino’s chief sin--other than his atrocious acting--has been to inspire every moron with access to a movie camera and Daddy’s credit cards to knock off a low-budget, noirish thriller about young, disaffected clowns who shoot really big, loud guns at one another when they’re not making vapid pop-culture jokes.

You couldn’t find a multiplex not showing one of those stinkers last year, and though they now show signs of dying off, they might still be considered a ripe target for parody. Alas, “Plump Fiction” is not the tonic we’ve been seeking.

The movie’s 1996 copyright points up some of “Plump’s” problems: With this kind of sketch comedy, timing is everything; topical gags lose their bite pretty quickly. Instead of dumping on recent films that merit getting the wind sucked out of their sails, like “Titanic” or even Tarantino’s latest, “Jackie Brown,” “Plump Fiction” trots out utterly exhausted references to “Forrest Gump” and “The Piano.” “Plump Fiction” already feels like a relic.

(“Swing Blade,” a short preceding “Plump Fiction,” likewise suffers from the same malady--this was mildly amusing when I first saw it a year and a half ago, about the time “Sling Blade” came out.)

“Plump Fiction” is, obviously, a vague spoof of “Pulp Fiction,” with Paul Dinello, Tommy Davidson and Julie Brown essaying the John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson and Uma Thurman roles, respectively. The joke is that Dinello must entertain mobster moll Brown, who is, physically, plump--contain yourselves, please. The takeoff on that film’s infamous sequence in the pawn-shop basement is pointless, since that scene went so far over the top it’s virtually parody-proof.

A sketch titled “Natural Blonde Killers” is also shoehorned artlessly in here, its humor apparently derives solely from the fact that the word “Blonde” is not the word “Born.” Opportunities are missed at every turn. If writer-director Bob Koherr wanted to really riff on Tarantino, he could’ve thrown in a gag about a director who wants to act but is really lousy, or he could’ve devised some mind-numbingly trivial dialogue. The opening dialogue, a fairly amusing take on EuroDisney (where Goofy is called “Un Chien du Goof”) is about as clever as the writing here gets. And since this was produced by Rhino, the kings of music reissues both tasteful and tacky, you’d think they’d parody Tarantino’s hipster-style use of music by unearthing some hilariously execrable tunes. This is managed but once, when Dinello and Brown boogie to Ray Stevens’ “Gitarzan.”

The only redeeming factors in this mess are Pamela Segall, ruthlessly capturing the in-your-face unwatchableness of Juliette Lewis’ recent performances, and Kane Picoy, who manages a decent Christopher Walken imitation.

* MPAA rating: R, for strong language and some comic violence. Times guidelines: lots of crass high jinks aimed at high school kids.

‘Plump Fiction’

Tommy Davidson: Julius

Julie Brown: Mimi

Paul Dinello: Jimmy

Rhino Films presents a film distributed by Legacy Releasing. Writer-director Bob Koherr. Producer Gary Binkow. Executive producer Stephen Nemeth. Co-producers Lorena David, Mark Roberts. Director of photography Rex Nicholson. Production designer Jacques Herbert. Editor Neil Kirk. Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes.

* In limited release throughout Southern California.