JUST AN AMERICAN BOY [] (two stars)

Running time: 95 minutes. Not rated (profanity, drug references). At the Cinema Village, 12th Street, east of Fifth Avenue.

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‘JUST an American Boy” is a mediocre music documentary about veteran country rocker and activist Steve Earle, who created a furor with a song sympathetic to American Taliban John Walker Lindh.

Between performances filmed in late 2002, the then-burly Earle (he’s since lost 55 pounds on the Atkins diet) is seen being interviewed on ABC about the song “John Walker’s Blues,” during which a headline from this newspaper is displayed: “Twisted Ballad Honors Tali-Rat.”

The movie’s press notes states that Earle fired the original director for being “too intrusive.”

His replacement, the veteran Amos Poe, is anything but, treating Earle’s drug addiction, incarceration and his anti-death penalty stance discreetly and superficially.

“Just an American Boy” has barely acceptable sound quality; the musical numbers had to be re-recorded for the accompanying double CD.