HOLLYWOOD, Calif., Oct.

NEW YORK, Nov.

By SCOTT A. MAY High expectations fall with a resounding thud in "Choke," the first big disappointment of the fall season. Gag is more like it. Sam Rockwell stars as Victor, a weary complainer stuck in a dead- end job as an underpaid re-enactor at a Colonial-era theme park.

By Stephen Holden Choke Directed by Clark Gregg * Reviewed by Stephen Holden * To visit the absurdist world of "Choke," the second film adapted from a novel by the "Fight Club" author Chuck Palahniuk, requires that you dive through the looking glass into a labyrinth where personal identity is fluid.

By John Beifuss "Choke" is the story of a depressed, smart-aleck sex addict (Sam Rockwell) who works as a costumed "historical interpreter" for tourists in a recreated colonial village when he's not visiting his insane, dying mother (Anjelica Huston); staging fake near-death experiences at restaurants to scam money from patrons who "save" him with the Heimlich maneuver; and wondering whether he really could be a clone generated from a particularly intimate anatomical relic of Jesus Christ.