GRAND THEFT PARSONS
[] (Two stars)
Lethargic road trip. Running time: 88 minutes. Rated PG-13 (drug references and some language). At the Village East, Second Avenue at 12th Street.
THE true-life 1970s event in which the road manager for cult country star Gram Parsons made off with the dead singer’s corpse was a legend arily bizarre incident that seems ripe for dramatization.
But the subject matter falls through the cracks in David Caffrey’s strange little indie, “Grand Theft Parsons.”
The film is too low-key to be the farcical rock-and-roll jape it sometimes seems to strive for, yet too lighthearted to be affecting.
“Jackass” prankster Johnny Knoxville suppresses his inner scamp to play roadie Phil Kaufman as a laidback easy rider, intent on keeping a pact he made with best friend Parsons that whoever died first would take the other’s body into the California desert and “set his spirit free.”
When the 26-year-old Parsons dies of a drug overdose in Room 8 of the Joshua Tree Inn, Kaufman is not the only one after the body.
Parsons’ father, Stanley (the reliable Robert Forster), wants to take his son back to New Orleans for burial, and the singer’s bitchy ex-girlfriend, Barbara (Christina Applegate), needs a death certificate to get her hands on his money.
With the reluctant help of a drug-addled “Jesus Christ Superstar” reject (Michael Shannon) and his canary-yellow hippie hearse, Kaufman steals the coffin from LAX airport and points the car toward Joshua Tree.
Barbara – improbably joined by Kaufman’s girlfriend (Marley Shelton) – and the grieving Stanley set off in pursuit, and “Grand Theft Parsons” turns into a ho-hum, meandering road movie, albeit with an extremely cool soundtrack.