`FEELING MINNESOTA' AN UNCONVINCING DOWNER : THE FACTS.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Critic

``Feeling Minnesota'' means you're in love, you're a loser and whatever you try to do is going to mess things up for everyone you know.

It's a depressing, absurd state of being, and one that isn't illuminated in a very tantalizing manner by first-time writer-director Steven Baigelman. Not without talent (he actually gets a believable performance out of Keanu Reeves), Baigelman is a Canadian who wants to capture something weird and true about the American underbelly. He ends up with a claustrophobic, unconvincing downer, in which the actors work their hearts out to dishearteningly dreary results.

Reeves plays the pointlessly named Jjaks. He's a soulful ex-con whose waywardness can be blamed directly on his uninterested mom (Tuesday Weld) and bullying older brother Sam (Vincent D'Onofrio). Jjaks has stayed away from the family's modest urban homestead for most of his adult life, to the general satisfaction of all involved.

But he does show up for Sam's wedding, unaware that the bride, Freddie (Cameron Diaz, dressing down from ``The Mask'' and ``She's the One''), is a reluctant one. She was a hooker-stripper-whatever who somehow crossed accountant Sam's crime lord boss, Red (Delroy Lindo), and Red's punishment is giving her to the schlub.

So only hours after the ``I do's'' are said, Freddie seduces Jjaks on a bathroom floor. She soon has him snared in her scheme to start a new life in Las Vegas. But Sam has some domestic dreams of his own and is deadly earnest about them. He'd rather kill Freddie than lose her. As for his brother, well, he hasn't taken that guy's life seriously since they were kids.

Double-crosses, bonehead plots, fraternal discord and brutal violence are all twisted around a core of facetious humor that curdles quickly. Getting out of Minnesota - especially drab regions of Minnesota - proves frustratingly difficult, both for the characters and the audience. Most of the characters are actively stupid (these include Dan Aykroyd's corrupt detective and Courtney Love's none-too-observant, hash house waitress), and even fine actors like D'Onofrio and Diaz can't make their basically awful people sympathetic.

On the plus side, as mentioned, is a Reeves who stays in character and doesn't sound like he's reading his lines for the first time. The guy's long-debated charisma is really apparent when you're not wincing every time he opens his mouth.

Baigelman has also constructed a fairly clever, convoluted plot, and about one out of every five insights into family conflict rings fresh and astute. But so much of it feels constructed for cheap effect, and the overall tone so hopeless when it's not aggressively vile, that ``Minnesota'' becomes one feeling most of us can do without.

The film: Feeling Minnesota (R; sex, violence, language, substance abuse).

The stars: Keanu Reeves, Cameron Diaz, Vincent D'Onofrio, Delroy Lindo, Courtney Love, Dan Aykroyd.

Behind the scenes: Written and directed by Steven Baigelman. Produced by Danny DeVito, Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher. Released by Fine Line Features.

Running time: One hour, 35 minutes.

Playing: Citywide.

Our rating: Two stars

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Photo

Photo: Cameron Diaz and Keanu Reeves star in ``Feeling Minnesota.''