Red State - Blu-ray Review

'the second half of Red State moves from Horror into solid B-movie Thriller territory, of the sort you might find Kevin Pollak featuring in nowadays'

Consider Red State's pitch and what should emerge to most film fans is a concept with a lot of promise. Red State is a Horror/Thriller from Kevin Smith, a vociferous director, which takes aim at ultra-conservative Christians, the Government and The World We Live In, to name but three. It's a fairly timely idea, which should stir up some degree of controversy whilst having plenty of material available in the background to mean Smith crafts his film to say something important, so lacking in some of his more recent efforts.

The resultant film takes its genre split rather literally. The first, more successful half, sees three likely lads (one of whom sports the worst haircut this side of the 1970s) kidnapped by Abin Cooper's (Michael Parks) Five Points Church and subjected to some degree of unpleasantness. This half, whilst tense and occasionally troubling, fails to deliver on the 'ultra-violence' Smith apparently promised but, non-the-less, is a fairly functional stab at kidnap horror, and the background segments showcasing Cooper's beliefs are effective.

The second half of Red State moves from Horror into solid B-movie Thriller territory, of the sort you might find Kevin Pollak featuring in nowadays. The film is low-budget, much publicised by Smith, something which shows much more in these segments, where a group of ATF agents seem to be invading your common or garden backyard. There is a way to shoot such small-scale engagements as if they are big budget spectacles but Smith never captures it correctly and the whole thing feels cheap and tacky, spending far too long showing a variety of un-interesting people shooting various automatic weapons aimlessly out of windows.

The whole that these two halves create is one which ultimately feels uneven, the film apparently abandoning its Horror pretensions halfway. Thematically too, there's plenty of real-life material here to mine and Smith could have hit back at critics of Cop Out by producing a well-made, visceral, treatise on the current climate, which shocked and/or awed in equal measure. Instead, he cuts away from more than one death, struggles to say anything new concerning ultra-conservatism and ends the whole thing with a kind of absurd wink towards the Government paranoia brigade.

Smith's return to material written by his own hand should have had horns sounding in triumph but instead misses more than half of what it aims for. The script only crackles very occasionally, the horror is fairly tame and the resultant location for Red State will, sadly, probably be somewhere in a bargain bin, lodged between any direct-to-DVD Horror you care to mention and the latest action-fest from Steven Segal. A sad state of affairs for an idea with so much to give.




Red State is released on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK on Monday 23rd January.

Look further...

'there’s an inordinate amount of shooting to be had and just not enough horror or scares to back it all up' - Cut The Crap Movie Reviews, 5/10

6 comments:

  1. The film could have definitely taken more advantage of its awesome premise, but with what it does, especially the writing and acting, it's a good flick but I've seen better from Smith. Good review.

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    1. I think the opening is decent but I'm really not sure the writing is all that. The acting from the established names (Leo, Goodman, not sure how established you can class Parks as being but him as well) is good but thought the three kids were iffy. That said, Kerry Bishé was decent so maybe the acting does get the benefit of the doubt as a whole.

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  2. i don't know... i sure found it disturbing as all heck...

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    1. Really? Interesting. I did find parts of the first half disturbing - the segment in the church when one of the three lads is in the cage is disturbing in terms of what all of the people there have been led to believe, and how easily they have been led, but I found the second half close to farcical.

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  3. i'm not sure about all the cinematography stuff, and the end was weird for sure- though i did find the rapture thing freakin' hilarious.
    but when the pastor guy is giving his twisted sermon... i turned to my husband and we both named this guy we know and said- ohmygoodness! that sounds just like *this guy* and it freaked me right out...
    the way that "sermon" twisted beliefs into something extremely scary and disturbing... and wow... scared the bejeebus outta me!

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    1. Those bits are well done, well performed by Parks, I just wish the film had somewhere more intelligent to go from there instead of resorting to an over-long, over-the-top shoot-out with, yes, that weird rapture bit come the end.

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