DISCLAIMER: It is tempting to frame a review of Kevin Smith’s new film, RED STATE, around its controversy on the business and social media side of things. Smiths decision to ‘four wall’ the film on a roadshow style tour and shutting out the usual publicity channels caused a bit of a tempest in a teapot at Sundance, particularly because seems to have become a lot more prickly in the past decade and has no problem broadcasting this to his fanbase either by his podcasting network or twitter account. That being said, I do not judge a Mission Impossible film by concerning myself with Tom Cruises thoughts on pharmaceuticals or his antics on Oprah, and I believe that Smiths film deserves a fair shake outside the confines of personality and gossip (and the business of show.) But it is hard, oh so hard, not to see things through the mist of online micro-controversies.
The ‘cult’ film is back, kicking off with the one-two punch of House of the Devil and The Last Exorcism along with the forthcoming Wicker Man sequel (Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Tree) and Ben Wheatley’s Kill List, the genre hasn’t seen this kind of surge since the mid to late 1970s. Sandwiched in the middle of the micro-renaissance is Kevin Smith’s radical departure from both the Askewniverse and pungent palette cleanser after his real horror film, Cop Out. Red State is not so much a cult-film as it is a film about cults, but one that defies expectations at several turns. Part diatribe against Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church (who is mentioned – and casually disregarded – explicitly in in the film) part torture-horror, part action-thriller, part bureaucratic farce, there are at least four films clamoring for dominance in Red State. And while Smith may not quite have panache for tonal shifts that the South Koreans have perfected, there are enough surprises on display here to warrant a recommendation along with a caveat or three.
Starting very much like a Kevin Smith film (albeit with a deliberate sense of hand-held camera work) three horny high school kids looking for sex follow up on an internet site that promises an anything goes experience. They want to all ‘do’ a girl at the same time, and in as vulgar language as possible, live the real misogynistic pleasure of teenage boys, the fantasy and anticipation. Of course the real thing doesn’t add up as planned, with an aged Melissa Leo getting herself drunk while working up to the act, which isn’t exactly the act as promised. Enter the whirlwind of Michael Parks who drops a Tarantino-lite monologue/sermon/soliloquy which grinds the first film to a halt and begins something different. It’s no coincidence that Parks was cast in the film, as Tarantino and Smith represented a mid-1990s re-invention of Miramax. Both are word jockeys, both are film nerds, with each representing different sides of the Sundance style movie. I won’t say that the dialogue is razor sharp, but it is authentic enough to believe that Parks was channeling it on the spot. Say what you will about the shift in tone with Parks instantly stealing the film with his Phelps-on-’roids scenery chewing, its worth the price of admission right there. As Pastor Cooper prepares to murder a gay man by suffocation, he has the good grace to send the children out of the church, but that doesn’t let the audience forget that they were there in the first place for the rest of vitriol. On the whole I never got the sense that the film is playing for keeps (as Smith undermines the whole film in the penultimate scene involving ATF bureaucrats), but he manages to get maximum visceral impact from innocent children’s faces in several scenes. It makes the middle of Red State a very icky and unpleasant affair, but kind of daring as well.
Then we head into Coen Brothers territory with the entrance of John Goodman, echoing a legit G-Man version of the Dude’s blustery side-kick, Walter Sobchak, dropped into the son of a Gundarrson domesticity of Fargo and exiting on something straight out of Burn After Reading. Coen regular Stephen Root even shows up as a goofy and useless local sheriff with a few unpleasant skeletons in his closet. But lest this review get as piecemeal as the transitions in Red State, lets go back to where we were. Goodman’s agent-in-charge mounts a politically inflected siege of the Cooper compound, while strife and confusion in the Cooper family (and their hostages) offer drama on the inside. To go further is to get into some heavy spoiler territory, and the films surprises in these acts are the films best surprises. The culmination of the siege could have been a coup d’état, Smith clearly misses his Inception moment, but immediately sets about undermining itself with expositional comedy. Before you can say Return of the King, the film has several false endings until finding a great image to close both the film and Smith’s straightforward thesis (the final shot is indeed note perfect.) Although this scene comes a tad too late considering the fundamental (pun intended) undermining of having Goodman’s mid-film heroics and an act of God require to justification to the dark haired guy eats and dreams at Winkies in Mulholland Dr.; here he is far more facile and smug than he was for David Lynch.
Neither as deep as required for an ‘event’ horror-thriller, or as simple as one might be tempted to pre-judge, Red State falls square in the middle. Occasionally suspenseful and clever (a local deputy’s planned trip to Italy has exceptional consequences to plotting), occasionally clunky in craft (excessive Snorricam shots or awkward background foley) yet, as is the directors wont, always giving the character actors ensemble plenty of gristle to tear away and chew on. This is clearly the step outside the comfort zone that Cop Out should have been. Those willing look past the films skewering of very easy targets and focus instead on the storytelling sturm und drang will get a zesty enough enterprise to convince this writer that Smith should put down his twitter account and self-deprecating pothead routine and keep pushing forward in this whole movie-making career that he seems all too keen to abandon. Far from a perfect entertainment, Red State nevertheless is a solid entry in the growing list of new century cultist films and, despite its occasional schizophrenias is an upswing moment for Kevin Smith.
I wonder if Red State will hit Toronto After Dark this year? I have been curious about this film for quite a while now. It sounds like tackling a new genre was the exact thing Smith needed to get his mojo back. I find it interesting that Smith is giving up movie-making just as people have become interested in his work as a director again. I guess he can amass a bigger following much quicker online than he ever could with films like Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Cop Out.
Smith mentioned in his Fantasia intro that there is a September leg of the four-walling Roadshow tour going to hit several Canadian cities (I’m assuming Toronto will be one of them), but unless you are willing to pay big $$ to get the full Q&A / Evening With treatment, this will play just fine in October when it is in regular release.
It’s $ 20 for the Q & A, and well worth it.
The first half hour is watchable. Parks is carrying it on his shoulders though. Smith’s direction is basically incompetent, the whole thing is a mess and it gets worse and worse as it goes along, to the point the only thing that can draw the interest back in is a ‘twist’ that he completely cops out of. No pun intended. Goodman and Leo are wasted/misused.
Don’t watch this. Smith has no idea what he’s doing.
I’m not sure I’ve ever used this comparison for any other movie before, but it fits this one.
Red State is a limp dick.
Finally saw this piece of crap–it’s a great example of a movie that has no clear protagonist and works from the first draft of the script.
Though I love R3′s new design.
The lack of focus works in the films favour as much as it undermines it. Why are we all trying to box this film into standard genre conventions?
The where in the bloody hell is this going to go next was Red State’s chief charm (that and good character work from the always fantastic Michael Parks)
I never said I was trying to box it in to standard genre conventions, I just said that it doesn’t have a clear protagonist (which it doesn’t) — I love genre mashing, when it’s done well, and I don’t even mind if the movie switches protagonists, but here I don’t think Smith is interested in either. It’s a remarkably lazy film that has one great moment for about three (or possibly six) minutes and then even that drags on another six.
It doesn’t work as a train wreck either, because it expects you to be scared, thrilled, sad, whatever without laying any groundwork (outside of being consistently messy) for it–and ultimately ends up being not only dull but cheap and venereal.
The lack of focus would be fine if there was more than one character worth paying attention to Kurt. But there isn’t. In a fucked up way Parks becomes the protagonist if only because he’s the only entertaining screen presence. And this is not Smith’s intent; thus, he’s epically failed.
He had one real chance to bust conventions and deliver something truly memorable, but he copped out of the horns, and interviews show that he really did intend to make the rapture happen, but then decided against it. BOOOOO.
HOLY CRAP! Red State just won best picture at Sitges 2011.
OFICIAL FANTÀSTIC COMPETICIÓ – SITGES 44
J. A. Bayona, Quim Casas, Lisa Marie, Ryoo Seung-Wan, Richard Stanley
Millor Curtmetratge / Mejor Cortometraje / Best Short Film
Ex aequo a Dirty Silverwear, de Steve Daniels, i The Unliving, d’Hugo Lilja
Millor Disseny de Producció / Mejor Diseño de Producción / Best Production Design
Marc Thiébault per Livide (Alexandre Bustillo & Julian Maury)
Millors Efectes de Maquillatge / Mejores Efectos de Maquillaje / Best Make Up FX
Steven Kostanski per The Divide (Xavier Gens)
Millors Efectes Especials / Mejores Efectos Especiales / Best Special Effects
Lluís Castells i Javier García per Eva (Kike Maíllo)
Millor Banda Sonora Original / Mejor Banda Sonora Original / Best Original Soundtrack
Steven Price per Attack the Block (Joe Cornish)
Millor Fotografia / Mejor Fotografía / Best Cinematography
Markus Förderer i Tim Fehlbaum, per Hell (Tim Fehlbaum)
Millor Guió / Mejor Guión / Best Script
Lucky Mckee i Jack Ketchum, per The Woman (Lucky Mckee)
Millor Actriu / Mejor Actriz / Best Actress
Brit Marling per Another Earth (Mike Cahill)
Millor Actor / Mejor Actor / Best Actor
Michael Parks per Red State (Kevin Smith)
Millor Director / Mejor Director / Best Director
Na Hong-jin per The Yellow Sea
Premi Especial del Jurat / Premio Especial del Jurado / Special Jury Award
Attack the Block, de Joe Cornish
Millor Pel·lícula / Mejor Película / Best Motion Picture
Red State, de Kevin Smith
If that’s true, than Sitges is a festival I’ll never go to ;|
RS works pretty great as a solid genre thriller for about 35 minutes or so. Basically once the “seige” begins, everything goes to shit. It’s a series of crappy, static shots of people really having fun firing fully-automatic weapons; dialogue disappears and what is there is forced, lazy and boring (the girl trying to convince the guy to help her escape? really?).
Melissa Leo is great but horribly underused. And I was so happy to see Kevin Pollack show up in a film again… for 2 minutes. Fuck!
The messages in the movie are overly blunt and uninteresting. Nothing that hasn’t been said a million times like five years ago. Patriot act? Disobeying questionably moral orders? Religious extremism? Really? This is what you’ve got to say after doing Dogma? Put down the reefer, Kevin.
And yes, there is a pretty interesting twist that COULD have been there in the end but ended up being explained away in the most hum-drum sort of way.
Basically all I saw is a film full of missed opportunities.
Well, they picked BURIED as the big winner last year, so yea, your mileage may vary. But don’t knock Sitges, it’s bigger than Fantasia in terms of scope, so you can really pick and choose from a wide variety of stuff…