Martin (Patrick Healy) is a young man with a passion for music but not much ambition behind it. To prove to himself that his tastes can generate household revenue the same way that his industrious artist girlfriend Pam’s (Rebecca Mader) craft business does, Martin answers an ad seeking artist and repertoire representatives for a small music producing and publishing concern. As the head of the company, Shank (John Baker), explains to Martin and the rest of a small group of applicants, the job is actually a combination of A&R man and salesman. Yes, Martin will scout and sign new talent, but everything comes at a price.

The musicians Martin inks will need to put their money where their commitment is and agree to shoulder 30% of the $3,000 cost of recording, manufacturing, and distributing their debut CD. “By helping these young artists,” Shank says “you’ll be learning to help yourselves.”

It sounds too good to be true, and of course it is. Martin and Clarence (Kene Holliday), the partner he teams up with in Craig Zobel’s marvelous debut feature “Great World of Sound,” have inadvertently become part of a venerable regional American con game called “song sharking.” The only thing that the musical hopefuls Martin and Clarence audition at home in Charlotte, N.C., and on the road in several Southeastern motel suites, are likely to receive for their $3,000 is an expensive ethics lesson.

As Martin and Clarence’s working relationship meshes, they become Shank’s biggest earners. And as their personal relationship grows, the two men find it increasingly difficult to kid themselves that what they’re doing is anything more than a shell game where the elusive pea is fame, wealth, and validation for untalented and rightfully obscure music hopefuls. African-American Clarence is a pragmatic, middle-aged graduate of the school of hard knocks. But Martin is the product of a white, middle-class, middle-of the road environment. When communications with the home office cease, the two unlikely partners are forced to face their own music and face off with each other as their unspoken differences devolve into open conflict.

“Great World of Sound” vividly and trenchantly examines the inexhaustible American capacity to sustain hope and generate self-delusion, with a native storytelling acumen close to extinction here at home. “You know what you need to tell a story?” the late, great pulp auteur Samuel Fuller is alleged to have inquired of a room full of production executives chasing their tails in a script conference. Fuller’s howled answer to his own question — “A STORY!” — addresses much of what puts “Great World of Sound “atthehead of the low-budget American movie pack. Mr. Zobel and his co-writer, George Smith, have mapped out a smart and compassionate journey using humor and a keen grasp of human nature to pose questions about race, wealth, fame, and morality, without ascending the pulpit or chickening out by substituting indie-wood “too cool to spin a yarn” generalities for solid plot mechanics and sincere thematic clarity.

The film’s agile and graceful camera movement and unerringly smart coverage poses one of the more persuasive recent arguments against the current world-wide filmmaking assumption that shaky, hand-held photography makes things more “real.” Nowhere is this more evident than in the film’s audition scenes, featuring actual singer/songwriter aspirants performing for Messrs. Healy and Holiday in character as Martin and Clarence. Though secreted behind the walls, the hidden cameras that document the musicians gamely taking their best shots, and the actors’ improvised, from-the-hip reactions , prowl and zoom with a relentless third-person scrutiny that evokes Robert Altman’s early’ 70s directorial prime.

A prolific character performer in movies and TV, Mr. Healy’s generous gift for vanishing into roles has ironically made him something of a well-kept acting secret. His memorable turns as an unctuous record collector in Terry Zwigoff’s “Ghost World,” an awkward pharmacist locked in a throat-clearing face off with Julianne Moore in “Magnolia,” and dozens of snitches, psychos, and suspects on TV, somehow don’t seem to be the work of the same man. During just two short scenes playing a tow-truck driver in David Gordon Green’s recent “Undertow,” Mr. Healy demonstrated a valedictory ability to simultaneously breathe life into a scripted role and put on a show of his own. Cynic to Martin’s dreamer and evangelist to Martin’s mitigator, Mr. Holliday, himself a multi-decade Hollywood big- and small-screen pro, proves an ideal co-star and collaborator, and to get her Messrs . Holliday and Healy catalyze some of the most ingratiating and volatile on-screen chemistry in recent memory.

Describing this tasteful, measured, compassionate, and honest x-ray of American mores in the critical superlatives “Great World of Sound” deserves seems almost a violation of the film’s low-key and self-assured craft and intelligence. Nevertheless, it is thus far the best American film of 2007 and hopefully the harbinger of equally great things to come from everyone involved in its creation.