In Theaters

AMERICAN OUTLAWS. Directed by Les Mayfield. Written by Roderick Taylor and John Rogers. 94 minutes. Rated PG-13.

At the end of Les Mayfield’s “American Outlaws,” when the music swells, the last pistol is fired and audiences are free to contemplate a stiff drink or a good cry (may I suggest both?), the blame game begins as the credits start to roll.

Was it Mayfield who insisted that Jesse James, Cole Younger and members of the James-Younger gang be turned into such relentlessly stupid cartoons? Or did that decision come from screenwriters Roderick Taylor and John Rogers, who also happened to pen the year’s worst dialogue? Or perhaps it came from producer Jonathan Zimbert, who is quoted on the film’s Web site as saying, “The James Gang is kind of like a rock ‘n’ roll band out on the road on their first tour together.” Oh, really? Sort of like Ozzfest meets the Old West?

Wherever the blame lies, “American Outlaws” is awful, easily one of the year’s more notable bombs, a film that joins “Original Sin” in that it’s probably best enjoyed as a comedy. There are, after all, several good belly laughs sandwiched between the beefcake and cheese, the best of which springs from Kathy Bates’ brief yet over-the-top performance as Jesse (Colin Farell) and Frank (Gabriel Macht) James’ mother.

History buffs know that Ma James’ home was blown to hell by the Pinkertons, but they also know she survived the explosion. Not so in “Outlaws,” which can’t help itself from humiliating Bates further by asking her to stagger out of the freshly flattened shack and collapse into her sons’ arms.

With her unfocused eyes blinking away death as if they’re batting away bats, Ma’s last words are a hoot: “Looky there, boys. Look! Look! Look! The Lord is shorter than I thought he’d be….”

There are two reasons the Lord is shorter than Ma James thought he’d be – either because the film sees her as bigger than life, or because the good Lord Himself is shrinking away in embarrassment.

Either way, smallness of stature fits this film well. Indeed, as the James-Younger gang charms its way through bank robbery after bank robbery, audiences are asked to believe that history has it all wrong. Jesse James and his crew weren’t murderers driven by moral corruption and greed.

Instead, they only robbed banks and blew holes through innocent people to give back to the poor. Hollywood has re-envisioned history before, but in “American Outlaws,” it turns that practice into a crime.

Grade: F

On Video and DVD

SAY IT ISN’T SO Directed by James B. Rogers. Written by Peter Gaulke and Gerry Swallow. 93 minutes. Rated R.

“Say It Isn’t So” is Hollywood’s latest video to splash about in cinema’s ever-expanding cesspool, but fans of fornication and flatulence should think twice before taking part in the bath.

This meandering hike through the hicks is an unfunny bore, an exasperating raunchfest whose taboo subject – incest – proves that Hollywood is out of touch when it comes to deciding what’s ripe for skewering, and what isn’t.

The film stars Chris Klein as Gilly, a slack-jawed animal control worker from Indiana who falls hard for Jo (Heather Graham). After consummating their relationship and moving headlong into marriage, the bed-hopping couple learn they’re actually brother and sister, a fact that delights Jo’s white-trash mother, Valdine (Sally Field), a boozy shrew who would rather see Jo dump Gilly for the fabulously wealthy Jack (Eddie Cibrian).

As the film’s trailer and television ads revealed, Gilly eventually learns he and Jo aren’t brother and sister at all. But with Jo now waxing bikini lines in Beaver, Ore., (isn’t that funny?), Gilly must fight his way across the country and back into her heart – a feat that will prove monstrously difficult since the Vodka-swilling Valdine is determined to see Jo marry Jack at all costs.

Unlike “There’s Something About Mary,” “Dumber and Dumber” and “Me, Myself & Irene,” “Say It Isn’t So” doesn’t feel liberated by its bad taste. Instead, mirroring movies like “Tomcats,” “Freddy Got Fingered” and “Osmosis Jones,” it feels absolutely burdened by it. Lingering over the production is an ongoing sense of desperation, a feeling that if the filmmakers can’t best “Mary’s” infamous hair gel scene, then they didn’t do their jobs.

Guess what, folks? They didn’t.

Grade: D

Christopher Smith is the

Bangor Daily News film critic.

His reviews appear Mondays in Style, Thursdays in the scene, Tuesdays on “NEWS CENTER

at 5” and Thursdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5:30” on WLBZ-2

and WCSH-6. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.