Who Is Cletis Tout?

A movie-mad hit man, Mafia goons, corrupt cops, carrier pigeons and an escaped con who assumes a troublesome new identity drive this insubstantial comic-caper picture, which recasts cliches as hommages and revels in self-referentiality. The story begins near the end: Tabloid shutterbug Cletis Tout (Christian Slater) is taken prisoner by hired-gun Critical Joe (Tim Allen), whose great passion is classic cinema. Does Joe believe Cletis's claim that he's really an unlucky forger named Trevor Finch? Maybe, maybe not. But Joe's waiting for his feel to be delivered, and he's always up for a good story. So Cletis/Finch pulls a neo-noir Scheherezade and starts spinnin...