“War Pony,” which won a Gold Camera at Cannes in 2022, was co-directed by Gina Gammel and Riley Keough, making their debuts. It was written by Franklin Sioux Bob, Bill Reddy, Gammel and Keough. The film follows the misadventures of two indigenous men on the Oglala-Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota and Nebraska and will remind some of Chloe Zhao’s superior 2017 effort “The Rider.”

The parallel protagonists in “War Pony,” are Matho (Ladainian Crazy Thunder), a young wayward boy, who lives with his substance-abusing father in a rundown home, and Bill (the Pete Davidson-like Jojo Bapteise Whiting), a tall, unemployed young man with two sons with two different indigenous women and a beat-up car. When Matho and his “Lost Boys” buddies find meth hidden in Matho’s father’s display case, they run around the neighborhood selling it and spending the proceeds on junk food at a convenience store. Matho, who is forced to move in with a Fagin-like woman running a drug ring, using boys as dealers, is caught by school authorities. For his part, Bill is forced by circumstances to raise $400 to bail out Carly, the mother of his older son. Bill believes, rather lamely, that he will do this by selling the future puppies of the female poodle  he has stolen, named Beast. Bill, who wears a baseball cap, t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops, has a vision of a bison. Is it real?

Bill and others his age speak the language of hip-hop. He calls $1,000 a “rack.” He expects to make lots of racks out of Beast, although he has no experience breeding dogs. Meanwhile, Matho and his friends sleep in the cramped living room, while Matho’s father takes the bedroom with some woman. Matho looks like he has not reached adolescence. He smokes weed with his father. The boy reads a book about magic because he is interested in “changing things with your mind.” I bet.

“War Pony” is a Neo-realist hard-luck story about indigenous people using an authentic, non-professional cast, co-directed and co-written by the granddaughter of Elvis Presley. That does not eliminate the film from serious discussion. But it is worth noting. We see kids on bikes and think, “E.T.,” right? Wrong. “War Pony” also comes along at about the same time as Jesse Short Bull and Laura Tomaselli’s acclaimed documentary “Lakota Nation vs. United States.”

Bill gets a lucky break when he meets a rich white rancher named Tim (Sprague Hollander), who needs help with a flat tire and an indigenous woman in his truck. Tim offers Bill a job in exchange for taking the woman back to the rez. Will unreliable Bill, who does not even speak Lakota, screw up this opportunity? Suddenly, it’s Halloween on the reservation, and Bill leaves his sons and Beast’s puppies in the back of his car alone at night while he serves in war paint at a party thrown by Tim. Elsewhere, Matho gets drunk and drives a stolen car with his buddies. The next stop on this ride is probably desolation row. Gammel and Keough do a good job with the cast and low-budget shooting-on-the-run. Crazy Thunder has screen presence and charisma. But the screenplay for “War Pony” is too full of stereotypes, and “then-this-happened” plot developments and become less and less involving. Surely, something more could have been made out of trick-or-treating on the rez.

(“War Pony” contains underage drug use, profanity, violence and suggestive content)

Rated R. At Apple Cinemas Cambridge and on VOD. Grade: B