Red State

I've never considered myself a Kevin Smith fan. While I liked "Mallrats", what I've seen of his other works has left me unimpressed. When I heard he would be tackling a horror film, I wasn't exactly enthused by the prospect, though horror is easily my favorite genre. In fact, I had pretty much forgotten about it until I came across a trailer online. That trailer, combined with the solid cast Smith was able to line up, changed my tune, so I was excited to see the film available on pay-per-view. After watching it, I can safely say that it's Smith's best film to date, which in itself isn't the highest of praise. However, it's also one of the best films I've seen all year.

Through an online ad, three teenage boys find a woman who is willing to have sex with all three of them at the same time. They go off to meet her, but it turns out to be a ploy, and they soon find themselves held captive in the rural compound of Abin Cooper and his fundamentalist religious cult. Cooper's group, known as the Five Points Church, is well-known for protesting at funerals of gays and causing various other commotions due to their beliefs. However, the true extent of how far they're willing to go due to the demoralization of America will soon be known to their three captives.

Smith's films have always been heavy on dialogue, and "Red State" is certainly no different. The dialogue here, though, is no laughing matter, particularly as Abin Cooper delivers a lengthy, vitriol-laced sermon to his flock. Michael Parks ("The Evictors", "From Dusk Til Dawn") has been around for a long time, but never has he been more on top of his game than he is here as the Five Points Church matriarch. You hear hyperbolic terms like "tour de force" thrown around all the time, but Parks' performance in this film is one that truly deserves to be described as such. The hateful conviction with which Cooper gives his sermon and the psychotic glee when he belittles those who don't share his beliefs are scarily real thanks to the strength of Parks, who never misses a beat.

The dialogue and film in general are clearly Smith's take on Fred Phelps and his infamous Westboro Baptist Church, but the film switches gears midway through and throws in some commentary on the Waco/Branch Davidian fiasco as well with the introduction of John Goodman as Joseph Keenan, an ATF agent poised to take out Cooper and his clan. After the local sheriff gets wind of the church's murderous activities, he contacts Keenan, who has been watching the group for quite some time. Keenan leads several ATF agents to the compound for a simple in and out, but after his second in command is shot dead, his superiors inform him that no one is to leave the compound alive, hostages and children included.

From here, the film takes more of an action turn as opposed to the horror-oriented first half. We bare witness to a thrilling shootout as Keenan struggles with his conscience and unlikely allies inside the compound try to find a way to bring the children to safety. Anyone familiar with the events in Waco or documentaries on the incident, such as the infuriating "Waco: The Rules of Engagement", will definitely see the parallels between the real life happenings and what goes on here. Smith's film is just as much an indictment against the ATF and government B.S. as it is against those who give religious people a bad name.

Goodman gives the other great performance of the film as the ATF agent stuck between a rock and a hard place. While his confliction is evident even after he relents and follows the orders of his superiors, he really shines in his final scene where he must explain the events to two government officials. I've always been a huge fan of Goodman's, and his monologue in this scene is some of the best acting of his career. Indeed, belief is a powerful thing. It's what you choose to do with it that defines you.

Also in the cast are Academy Award winner, Melissa Leo, as Abin's daughter, Kevin Pollak in a "mind-blowing" cameo and the always quirky Stephen Root as the troubled sheriff. Smith assembled quite the cast for this venture. Independently financed, the method of release for this film has been odd to say the least, but I'm just happy to have seen it. The tone of the film is sporadic, always shifting and keeping the viewer off kilter. There is a little humor thrown in too, as is to be expected with Smith, but this is a pretty serious picture overall. If I had one qualm with it, it's the whole explanation for the trumpet bit, which seemed a little out there and overcomplicated. Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed what Smith delivered here.

If what I've heard is true, and Kevin Smith is intending to retire from filmmaking after his next movie, at least he went out with a bang. "Red State" is a successful change of pace.

Kevin Smith's first non-comedy film is a loose actiony horror parable about an extreme right wing Baptist Christian cult, who kidnap and sacrifice "sinners" as part of their services and three young idiots who are tricked into their clutches. A minor traffic accident on their way to the rendezvous inadvertently escalates until eventually it brings an ATF squad to the pastor's compound, but will they be in time to save the trio.

Central to "Red State"s appeal is a towering performance from the late Michael Parks, as Pastor Cooper, the devout head of the family church. He's charismatic and magnetic, despite the warped beliefs he holds and has engendered in his flock. His performance adds a credibility to the idea that his congregation would murder at his behest. The rest of the cast is full of recognisable faces, Anna Gunn and Matt Jones from "Breaking Bad" have small roles. Michael Park's son James appears, as does Stephen Root, Kevin Alejandro, Kevin Pollock and Patrick Fischler. If there is a weakness to the cast, it's probably in the three boys who make the poor choice to meet an older woman at a quiet trailer park. Kyle Gallner, as Jarrod, makes the most of his role as the defacto leader of this group, but the other two boys are perhaps a little underwritten and making us care more for them might have made their scenes of peril resonate more.

Smith's scriptwriting, despite veering away from comedy, remains his greatest strength. Dialogue remains sparky, and relationships (such as between John Goodman's ATF agent and his wife, his unnamed boss on the other end of the phone and his increasingly distressed on site team) feel realistic. Where it fails is the other great criticism that dogs Smith, the action scenes that make up the final third of the film are pedestrian and repetitive and drag on until we reach a truly surprising conclusion. I can't decide even now if I'd have preferred the hinted at ending to have been the truth, or the one we get, but it's a memorable ending.

It was brave of Kevin Smith to make a move so far outside his wheelhouse and he deserves credit for it, even if the result is a bit flawed.

OK, so as part of Kevin Smith's guerrilla marketing campaign for this movie, it aired on PPV in the US last night. That means that it was on the torrentnet this morning, and as a result I got to watch it in Europe tonight. I'm still reeling from the experience.

I mean, we are talking Kevin Smith, king of the slacker movies, but at the same time the creator of one of the most intelligent and well-done movies about religion ever made, "Dogma." I have seen every one of Kevin Smith's films, some of them multiple times. But as much as I like the guy, I've never found myself asking, "What would happen if this guy decided to step away from the slacker comedy and make a serious movie -- a horror movie about America, as he sees it?" I never saw this movie coming.

"Red State" is at its heart a horror movie. It starts by playing to horror movie conventions. Three teenaged guys, off for a night of fun in a neighboring Southern town, follow an Internet ad promising them a three-way with a willing older woman, and as a result wander into the WRONG Southern town. This town is the home of a Chrisschun religious cult, and they placed the ad. Try to imagine what the gay-hating and sex-hating Westboro Baptist Church would be like if they decided to take God's Law into their own hands and start killing the sinners themselves. Then try to imagine the situation escalating into a machine-gun-fire standoff with the ATF. What makes this such a good horror movie is that the horror could actually happen in the US. Everything about this movie is shocking *because it could actually happen*.

Kevin Smith is a closet politco. Who knew? This is a very, very, very powerful movie, about the hell that the United States of America has descended into post-9/11. It is SO not a comedy, although it contains very funny moments, and it is SO not for the faint-hearted, or for those who lean heavily to the right politically, or who believe that doing so is synonymous with leaning to the Right. God's Right.

With this film, Kevin Smith has risen to the top of my list of People I Most Want To Share Two Too Many Beers With Just So I Can Talk With Them.

Kevin Smith breaks away from his comedic roots to direct and write this religious/political/bigot baiter that lurches from Hostel type madness into a siege of the damned. Starring Melissa Leo, Michael Parks, John Goodman, Michael Angarano, Kerry Bishe and Nicholas Braun, story finds Parks heading up a Christian cult that lures horny youngsters to their place of worship on the promise of sex with an older woman. Of course once the lads get there it's not long before the truth of the lure is revealed and we are treated to hate spiel by sermon and some unpleasantness from the production code edition of the torture porn play book.

Red State is an infuriating movie in many ways, but it is never dull and it always remains challenging, even if some of Smith's sermonising agendas lack cohesion entering the final third of the piece. In fact there are three tonal shifts that don't make an altogether appetising whole, Smith straining to bridge the gap between satire and horror – cum – thriller. And sadly the climax to all the damaged threads is very anti-climatic. On the major plus side is a cast doing fine work, headed by Goodman, Leo and Parks, the latter getting to play lead dog for a change. It's impressively shot by Dave Klein and Smith shows flickers of there being a good director in the mix.

Poor box office and bad reviews upon release inevitably got it tarnished as a bad film. In truth it's a fascinating failure, but it has merits enough to warrant time spent with it. From Westboro to Waco, stopping briefly for a night in a Hostel, Red State is not easily forgotten once sampled. For better or worse. 6/10

I know, there are many directing flaws here, particularly with the overly long preaching sermons given by the lunatic pastor in this story, but the story itself does bear some credence. The casting was well chosen, and they certainly lived up to the characters they portrayed.

The one take away comment I'll offer at this juncture is that this film is truly terrifying, is definitely not for the faint of heart, not because of excessive gratuitous violence and such, which there really is not that much of, but in the depiction of the scenario, culture and characters that are represented.

I have seen and met, first hand, lunatic nut case religious fanatics, which almost perfectly match what is presented in Red State, because I have traveled through and have spent some time in "red state" areas. As far as I'm concerned, this film has captured exactly what these types of areas and fanatical religious entities are like. Trust me on this one . . . been there, done that.

Maybe this entire film seems too over the top cliché', stereotypical over dramatization and simplistic rendering of this type of culture and its purveyors of bigotry and hate, but before one makes too hasty an evaluation along such lines, I would suggest you have not seen what I have.

Just for reference, I am not gay, and this is not what my commentary is about. My commentary is oriented toward the predatory social pathology of fanatical extremist religion, an unfortunately all too common form of a serious mental disorder with often horrific consequences which can be witnessed here, in the USA to this very day, in the 21st century.

As for other reviews here, yes there are flaws, and given the opportunity that this story could have provided for a truly great film, yes, it did fall a bit short. Having said that, however, this was not an overtly bad film either, and considering what is portrayed and how it was presented, I still grant Red State a fairly high rating.

There have certainly been far worse films with completely absurd, irrelevant stories which have received rave reviews, so I would advise a bit of caution in how some of the other reviews here should be taken.

Given all that . . . 7 stars for Red State