Hick is an ugly piece work. The worst kind of bad. It’s a movie that believes it has something to say, but has nothing – a nothingess that comes after 90 minutes of misery. It’s a vapid mess about a girl who, despite encountering nothing but terrible acts, earns zero sympathy. That girl, Luli (Chloë Moretz), a 13-year-old kid from Nebraska, sets out to Vegas after being abandoned by her loony mother and drunk of a father. Her road trip goes the typical route: violence, rape, drug use, and robbery, everything you’d expect from a 13-year-old’s trip with a wasted Blake Lively. She comes from a world where a gun is a nice birthday gift for a kid, where 13-year-olds awkwardly quote Sunset Boulevard, and where Eddie Redmayne is forced to play a poor man’s take on Kit  from Badlands, all these phony details are used to establish we’re in a dark and heightened world. Or is this intended as our reality? Director Derick Martini can’t answer that, never coming up with the right tone.

Kick-Ass star Chloe Moretz is about to escape. She has signed on to the upcoming coming-of-age drama Hick, for director Derick Martini, who debuted his first film Lymelife at Sundance in 2008.