Red State: A Review

First off, let me say this Red State isn't Clerks. Hell, it isn't even Dogma. What it is is a highly original, thought provoking and entertaining film. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of Kevin Smith's previous films. But everything about this movie is different for Smith. Amazon list's the pre-release rental in the horror category. (More on that later).

But it isn't what you would expect from a standard Hollywood issue "horror" movie.  Sure, there is plenty of violence, enough gun play that automatic weapons fire turns into something of a backing track for the middle third of the movie, and plenty of head shots. What is truly horrifying is Smith depiction of the Five Points Christian Church and Michael Parks outing as Abin Cooper. Cooper and his followers are truly horrifying, simply because, at least this viewer saw how easily this group could be transported into the real world. Abin Cooper and his followers go from praising Jesus to executing innocent people all the while still wearing the same frozen creepy-as-hell smiles. Their victims and finally the ATF soon realize that Cooper and his followers cannot be reasoned with. John Goodman's out as Keaton, the lead ATF agent on the scene strikes me as a very human response to a very inhuman situation. He receives an order from an off-screen superior that is just as horrifying as Cooper and his followers beliefs. I don't want to give away too much more at the risk of straying into spoiler territory, but I will say this, there is no clear-cut "good" guy here. Inhuman behavior is responded to inhumanely. Red State is a very stark, and realistic depiction of fictional events. The actors and Smith's characters mesh. Every character featured feels like a fully realized, fleshed out human being. That's something to don't get in a lot of films these days.

As far as individual performances go, Michael Parks played Abin Cooper as believable as one could when cast as a psychopathic ideologue. If you need one reason to see this film, make it for Park's performance.

John Goodman played Keaton has well as one could, an ordinary man, thrust into an extraordinary situation. He also gets some of the best lines in the film "Simple just shit itself!" and in response to Kevin Pollack's "I wonder how much a cross like that costs? Keaton simply replies, "In Dollars or Common Sense?"

The level best performance, however, came from Kerry Bishe' as Cheyenne, a member of the Five Points Church and Abin Cooper's granddaughter. She is easily the most sympathetic character in Red State. Hers is the only truly altruistic motivation in the story. She simply wants to protect the children in her family, even if it means her life or freedom. At one point she enlists one of the hostages in this cause, right before the final WTF moment of the movie. 



All that being said, I'll easily give this movie 5/5 stars, as it is the best film I've seen this year. It would not have been so, I suspect, if Kevin Smith had chosen to go with the standard, traditional Hollywood model, I'm fairly certain some studio bigwig would have, (possibly did) demand some edits to dumb it down for mass consumption. I am very glad he didn't. The Studio system is a business model, the primary concern in any business is making money. Punching this film up and dumbing it down would likely lead to better box office numbers, but it also would have robbed it of it's impact.

 Kudos to you, Mr. Smith for doing what it takes to see that your vision was brought to the masses. I really like the fact that you chose to allow pre-release rentals of the film on sites like Amazon.

Seriously, do yourself a favor. See this movie.  But keep in mind, it's not Clerks or Dogma. If that's what you want, follow the links and just watch those.