Red State (2011)

Red State (2011)
Director: Kevin Smith
Screenplay: Kevin Smith
Starring: John Goodman, Melissa Leo, Michael Parks, Kerry Bishé, Kyle Gallner

One-sentence summary: Pastor Abin Cooper is the head of the Five Points Church, an ultra-conservative church that gives the Westboro Baptist Church a run for their money not only in ideology but also in sheer firepower.

Review: Let's make this clear: I didn't enjoy Red State very much.

Don't get me wrong, as a gay man, I can get riled up over anti-gay rhetoric. And Abin Cooper (Michael Parks) says a lot of it over the course of the film, and I found myself becoming increasingly agitated with every hateful word he spewed out. You would think that that helps invest you in the movie, but to be honest, it felt a little... cheap. And until it was made clear that in the movie's universe the Five Points Church co-exists with the Westboro Baptist Church, I was certain that Kevin Smith was merely exaggerating the "danger" that Westboro poses. Nope, Five Points is just batshit insane. Branch Davidian insane. Waco siege insane.

And then we come to the issue of what exactly the movie was trying to say.

Just what was it saying?

By the end of the film, I sat there in stunned silence trying to process what I had just seen. Kevin Smith managed to fuse together the ideology of Westboro with the trigger-happy Branch Davidians, and what resulted was not a particularly cheerful movie. I'm all for depressing movies, I just want them to say something. Red State feels like a misguided attempt at warning us about the dangerous combination of religious fervor and guns.

I'm uneasy in labeling Red State a horror movie even though that's what Kevin Smith calls it. I can see where he's getting that from but by no means is Red State a conventional horror film. The movie does a good job of making you feel uneasy (almost similar to maybe something you'd see in Saw or Hostel, but to a lesser degree) but it's not really something I think you'd pull out on Halloween. More than anything, Red State tries to make you uncomfortable and make you think, but it fails simply because the movies seems designed to shock rather than give you food for thought.

Final word: Red State is a strange film that has some good ideas contained within, but poor execution and a lack of emotional connection with the audience leaves you wondering why you're watching a movie that re-enacts the Branch Davidian Waco siege in a shorter span of time.