This low-budget independent feature is supposed to be a comedy about stand-up comics, but I didn’t hear a single laugh at the press screening. Writer-director Pete Schwaba stars as a longtime comedy contender in LA who’s told he can audition for the Tonight Show at a roadside bar in northern Wisconsin, where a talent scout returns annually for the Rocktoberfest. He winds up romancing a former high school teacher (Lauren Holly, the film’s only bright spot), who’s been dating a drug dealer, the title thug (Tony Goldwyn). Schwaba’s uncertainty as a director is underlined by the almost arbitrary jump cuts, freeze-frames, and sped-up action. R, 90 min. (JR)