Red White & Blue

Red White and Blue is not for everyone. This movie with grab your emotions right from the beginning (good or bad) and keep building upwards.

There is no clear antagonist or protagonist; I'm sure we could label some, but it detracts from the complex interactions and subtext. This movie has layers and it will stick with you for several days. I repeat - this movie stays with you and reaches some dark places.

The acting is very good and Noah Taylor is engrossing. I can not believe this guy is not cast in more roles, seriously. Taylor gives a stellar performance of the performance you almost wished you had never seen.

I recommend highly.

Emily (Amanda Fuller) is a drifting through life soul, who fills in the void of her existence by having sex with pretty much any guy she meets. She strikes up a hesitant platonic friendship with Nate (Noah Taylor), a psychopathic Iraq war veteran. Nate doesn't seem too pushed on laying her, and seems to prefer to regale her with left field tales of him torturing animals as a psychopathic kid.

Franki (The Lost's Marc Senter) is a rather immature musician, with dreams of making it big, all the while caring for his cancer stricken mother. A drunken encounter with Emily will set off an event which will have horrific consequences for them both. This in turn will trigger off a horrible, brutal and uncompromising revenge...

Unfortunately, I can't reveal anything else about this film without spoiling things, as it takes time to get to its revelation. Red White And Blue is a very slow burning character study piece, which makes its third act all the more shocking. This is NOT an exploitation flick, and any fans of exploitation revenge films should very much bear this in mind, as the film takes over an hour to setup the circumstances for its revenge payoff. However, it's a damn good film in its own right, with excellent performances all around, and an unusual outlook on its characters.

Emily for example is at least partly at fault for the consequences which effect her, and Franki is no typical screen villain here, but is rather a likable everyman. Nate, while clearly a psychopath is however in no way proactively aggressive, and basically nobody concerned fills in the required role one would expect for revenge films. Basically, it's an art-house film as far as I'm concerned, but it works.

The film itself looks great, with the first slow burning half consisting of bus stops, blue collar lunch areas and seedy looking dodgy bars, and it has a nicely gritty warts n all white trash vibe to it.

Again, fans of exploitation or shallow revenge films, take note, as this will not be what you're expecting, particularly from its misleading youtube trailer, but my advice is to stick it through, as it's a great revenge film, and a great film in its own right, that manages to shock in its third act via its sheer uncompromising nature

7/10. Won't be to everyone's tastes but I personally quite liked it, and anyone who liked Shane Meadows Dead Man's Shoes should find much to like here.

Noah Taylor really shines in this movie. He was perfect for the role. There are no good guys here just bad people and worse people. Don't watch this movie unless you want to be brought down a few emotional steps.

Little Deaths was my cup of tea. I liked it and noticed the part called Bitch directed by Simon Rumley, the director behind Red White and Blue. From shot one you know what kind of flick this turns out. An uneasy film with disturbing moments coming from all sides.

We start to know Erica, a girl who f*cks around, she just doesn't care who it is but be advised, she only do it ones , no questions, no love. And the first minutes you see Erica (Amanda Fuller) having sex all the time. Old people, 3 in one time, it just doesn't care. But she comes across an ex-Iraq veteran called Nate (Noah Taylor) who has an interest in her. But he's the only one she doesn't want to have sex with. Slowly we start to know both and some guys Erica had sex with. From there on you can't see what is coming and it moves slowly in some kind of arty way. But it is the excellent performances that kept you attracted to the screen. Just when you think were is this going things go wrong with one guy she had sex with. HIV enters in his life. Bad thing, and this flick turns into a disturbed part.

Clearly not for everybody. It do have some sickening parts. But the way it was shot and the use of piano as score gives it that arty feeling. i should classify it under a revenge flick but not with a horror overtone.

Gore 1,5/5 Nudity 2,5/5 Effects 2/5 Story 3,5/5 Comedy 0/5

If you turn away from the movie after the very hard and maybe even too explicit (though it really isn't, but it feels like it is) beginning, you will miss out on the why. You won't be able to see where the director wanted to take this. And it would be a shame. This is as "down and dirty" as a movie can go. From cinematography, acting and story/character (development).

It might not be your cup of tea of course (nothing glossy to be found here), but if you let yourself into the story and the characters (with all their flaws, of whom they have many), then you will be rewarded with a very weird and angry story. It won't pull any punches either (whether you like that or not) and stays true to it's grittiness throughout. One of the better movies I watched in 2010 (and I watched quite a few)