“RED STATE”Written and Directed by Kevin Smith
**** (four stars)
Now THIS is the Kevin Smith that I know!!
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, love or hate him, I firmly believe, and it cannot be denied, that Writer/Director Kevin Smith is one of the most unique creative voices working in American independent cinema today, as well as over a nearly 20 year period. Yet, in recent years, I have to admit that I have questioned Smith’s creative judgments and have actually worried a bit for him as his typically audacious, irreverent creative spark had been dampened by sub par material. Despite its flaws, I will not join the parade of “Jersey Girl” (2004) bashers, as I believe it to be as honest of a film as anything else he has ever created. But, after creatively treading water with the shamelessly so-so “Zack And Miri Make A Porno” (2008), releasing last year’s bankrupt “Cop Out,” and then announcing this summer that he would be retiring from filmmaking, I began to think that perhaps Kevin Smith’s best days as a filmmaking talent were fully behind him. However, I still carried a sense of hope…
You see, around four years ago or so, Smith cryptically teased his fan base by stating that a dark stylistic change was brooding upon the horizon as he would be making a “horror movie.” Now, that horror movie has, at long last, arrived in the form of “Red State,” a relentlessly grueling experience that marks a creative quantum leap forward for Smith. Not only is the film worlds away from his Salinger-esque “View Askewniverse” series of six films which began with the groundbreaking “Clerks” (1994), concluded with his superlative sequel “Clerks II” (2006) with no less than “Chasing Amy” (1997) and “Dogma” (1999) smack dab in the middle, it is not even a comedy or satire in any way, shape or form. “Red State” is indeed a horror movie but it is not the horror of the supernatural. It is a horror story starring the monsters that live within our society everyday. When I wrote about “Chasing Amy” recently for an installment of “Savage Cinema Revisits,” I remarked that I adored this cinematic love story so deeply because it was a fearless piece of work. With “Red State,” Kevin Smith has returned to his audacious roots and has arrived with his best film since “Chasing Amy.” For a story that plunges us so ferociously into the deep water nightmare of fear, Kevin Smith’s “Red State” is a brazenly, boldly fearless film experience. It is not for everybody but it is bracing, exciting cinema.
“Red State” opens within somewhat familiar Kevin Smith territory as we meet Travis (Michael Angarano), Jared (Kyle Gallner) and Billy Ray (Nicholas Braun), three Southern small town teenage boys in the midst of planning a salacious Friday night adventure with an unknown older woman advertising group sex through the internet. The threesome borrow Travis’ parents car and travel 30 minutes out of town into the even smaller location of Cooper’s Dell where they find a small trailer housing their internet sex date, an older woman named Sarah Cooper (Melissa Leo). Upon entering Sarah’s trailer, the three boys nervously drink beers as they await an evening of fornication yet as they begin to undress, all three pass out into unconsciousness as Sarah has drugged them.
Jared awakens to find himself trapped inside of a small covered cage, which is being wheeled into the tiny inner sanctum of the Five Points Church, the operation of Pastor Abin Cooper (Michael Parks), an organization with stockpiled weaponry that is so bigoted and violently racist that even the Neo Nazi movement has admonished them.
I dare to describe more of “Red State” to you so as to not produce any spoilers and also to not ruin the film’s jarringly effective story structure which takes some hard twists and turns. I will say that the great John Goodman figures into the film as ATF agent Joseph Keenan, who arrives at the Five Points Church compound after being notified of the teenagers disappearance. Soon thereafter, the situation descends into a level of violence akin to the Waco, Texas disaster.
Kevin Smith’s “Red State” is as brutal, uncompromising, unforgiving, and extremely violent as it is audacious, challenging, compelling and provocative. It is Kevin Smith’s most visually accomplished film by a long shot and his tightest directorial effort to date. It is firmly structured and executed with supreme confidence. And yes, it is as advertised. “Red State” in indeed a horror film as it is terrifying and will haunt you with feelings of dread long after the final credits have ceased to scroll. I always hoped and deep down I always knew that Smith had it inside of him to produce a work that places most films released today into shame due to their lack of creativity and risks. Time and again throughout his career, Smith has played by his own storytelling rules and has taken the level of creative risks that Hollywood has long seemed to have forgotten about and “Red State” is no exception. What begins as a bit of a romp, quickly zigs into terror and zags into an action thriller and then changes once again with moments that recalled Director Michael Tolkin’s disturbing religious drama “The Rapture” (1991), while always being consistent with itself. It never feels as if you are watching four different movies, as the complete story follows its own logical arc with precision. Smith constantly keeps you off guard and I am stunned with many of the storytelling decisions he made, which of course, I will never reveal here. Let’s just say that I jumped and gasped more times than I thought that I would and I was amazed with the increased skill Smith has now shown as a filmmaker.
Yet, one skill in particular that Smith has always adhered to is his ability of providing his cast with copious amounts of material for them to sink their acting teeth into and with “Red State,” there is plenty enough to chomp and to have seconds. This is a skill I have long appreciated from filmmakers like Smith and of course, Quentin Tarantino because as I have often lamented on this site, I grow so irritated when filmmakers hire actors and have them do absolutely nothing but lazily cash their paychecks. No such passivity lurks in any corner with “Red State” as Michael Parks as Pastor Abin Cooper gives a performance of such towering strength, horrific power and tangible, realistically luscious evil. He is flat out sensational and while I know that this will never happen due to the film’s tiny theatrical release, he deserves an Oscar nomination for his work.
Pastor Abin Cooper, who has been loosely based upon real world infamous hate speech preacher Fred Phelps, is simultaneously charismatic, chilling, and disturbingly calm, whether spouting endless amounts of hate speech to a small yet completely devoted congregation or even surrounded by a hail of bullets. His supreme sense of self-righteousness is the frightening core to this character as he is no one that can possibly ever be reasoned with because he truly believes that his actions are divinely inspired.
He burrows under your skin so effortlessly especially when he sings spirituals in the film. His voice, his gravelly Southern voice, is so cold, so barren of actual rhythm and melody to the point that it is almost atonal feels like the darkness of an empty grave. But I would say that Parks’ tour de force is actually his very first scene in “Red State” during which he delivers a staggeringly well written and nearly 15 minute monologue. His sermon and his congregation’s reaction towards it reminded me quite a bit of Directors Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing’s incredibly unnerving documentary “Jesus Camp” (2006) most notably in regards to how children are unwittingly indoctrinated into the world of hate, racism, intolerance and violence all in the name of God. It was so fascinating to see how Abin Cooper could playfully cajole his grandchild with jokes abut “Popeye” and seamlessly segue into a speech about God’s wrath, our need to forever fear God, to somehow discover the devotion and love inside of that fear and then to utilize this fear to eradicate “the homosexual element” from the Earth. And THEN, he’ll shoo the children from the congregation, explaining that “it’s about to get real grown up in here.” Michael Parks is so undeniably mesmerizing during this sequence that as he speaks, it was quite some time before I even noticed that there was a white cloaked figure standing directly behind him, a figure soon to be revealed as a sacrificial male victim tied to the cross in Saran Wrap with a ball gag stuffed into his mouth.
Conceptually, “Red State” is a film of such unrelenting bleakness that essentially none of the characters walks away easily…if at all. Every character in the film is undone by their respective allegiances to sex, religion or the government and with the way Smith constructs his story, he forces us the audience to find our allegiances slightly sliding back and forth between various parties and perceptions. I found it to be quite clever how Smith played with the horror film convention of randy teenagers being punished for their natural, emerging sexual emotions to the point that “Red State” can work as a film of sexual paranoia as much as Director Adrian Lyne’s “Fatal Attraction” (1987) was.
Furthermore, and most importantly there is the nature of evil and Hell itself to deal with. Kerry Bishe gives a frantically intense performance as Cheyenne, Sarah Cooper’s daughter, Pastor Abin Cooper’s granddaughter and caretaker of the compound’s small children. Once the Feds have been ordered mission to destroy the Cooper compound, killing everyone in sight solely in order to eliminate any potential witnesses to their own tragic errors, she makes a great case to another character (and again, the audience) for protecting the children from harm. And then, you are asked to question which organization is more monstrous: The Five Points Church, a group that promotes their anti-homosexual agenda at the funerals of dead homosexuals or the government enforcing a political agenda by any means necessary. This conceit even recalled for me noting less than Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” (1972) which provided a similar conundrum by forcing us to almost sympathize with the young ruthless rapist Alex (Malcolm McDowell) as he is being subjected to government-induced torture with the intent of “curing” his violent tendencies.
Kevin Smith cleverly underlines the entire proceedings with an Old Testament styled biblical framework as the bloodbath works as modern day “fire and brimstone.” Beyond the violence, “Red State” is a film that takes us to Hell while asking us exactly what does Hell represent? For Abin Cooper, obviously Hell is the existence and prominence of anything an deveryone that does nto view the world as he and his flock. To the teenagers, it is the world that unwittingly found themselves trapped inside of. For ATF agent Keenan, Hell may represent the forced adherence to government polities and orders at the expense of human life. And for one character, Hell may be living the life of a closeted homosexual feeling, while being trapped in a heterosexual marriage.
For me, there are many forms of Hell but one in particular is a world where figures like Abin Cooper are able to run rampant, injecting their personal and righteous brand of sadistic venom into a culture that has no use for it whatsoever. The sickness of people who use the Bible as a weapon and as a shield to hide their own bigotry and intolerance is more than evil. It is abominable.
To those who feel that religious fanatics are nothing more than an easy target for satire or political horror and that Kevin Smith is really not being as provocative as he may believe himself to be, well, I offer the following. Kevin Smith’s “Red State,” from its very title to the full execution of the film as a whole, is indicative of some very nasty business occurring within our society at this time. Figures like Abin Cooper will always exist upon the fringes but, I just think that we all need to be realistic, dear readers. The fringes have moved into the mainstream with a vengeance. I do not wish to sound hyperbolic and also I do not wish to proselytize but the truth of the matter is that we have political leaders in and outside of America committing acts of war and violence, solely because those people truly believe that they are doing the work of their chosen deity. Of course, that is nothing new. But what is happening now in 2011 that is truly frightening to me is that political leaders are infusing an extremist evangelical set of beliefs into our political process. And furthermore, we currently have one woman with a husband utilizing federal funds to run and operate a clinic where homosexuality can be “prayed away” and a standing Governor, who has overseen more executions than any other Governor in our nation’s history, who possesses a hunting ground bearing the name of “Niggerhead” as viable PRESIDENTIAL candidates. Tell me, does Abin Cooper seem that far fetched now?
As far as I am concerned, “Red State” could not be more timely, more necessary and in the case of Kevin Smith’s filmmaking career, this film could not have arrived at a better time. I always knew that he could pull it off!!!!
SAVAGE POSTSCRIPT:
So, if this review has whetted your cinematic appetite, how can you see “Red State” as it is currently not playing in theaters at all. Well, as audacious as the film itself happens to be, Kevin Smith’s release strategy was equally audacious. After the film’s premiere this past January at the Sundance Film Festival, Smith infamously purchased the distribution rights to the film himself for the whopping total of $20. He then circumvented the standard movie release system by taking his film upon a nationwide traveling roadshow tour. As of this point in time, “Red State” is available on DVD and Blu-Ray and you may also view the film through your cable company or satellite provider’s On Demand feature, I-Tunes, Netflix Streaming or Amazon.com Instant Video.
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