Red State directed by Kevin Smith (The Harvey
Boys and NVSH Productions, R, 88 minutes)
Starring Michael Parks, Melissa Leo,
and John Goodman.
Disorientation
Honestly, I love
complex narratives. When a storyteller leads me down a path and then pulls the
rug from under my feet, I take a certain amount of perverse joy in the
deception.
So then, Kevin
Smith’s Red State, with no
discernible protagonist and antagonist, ought to be a film that suits my
interests. Sadly, not so. A fine line exists between an artistic shredding of
stereotypical plot lines and lazily writing a complex mess. Red State is a complex mess.
Horny Teenagers Meet Fundamentalist
Zealots
The movie begins
with our first faux-protagonist, Travis (Michael Angarano) being driven to
school. Startled by a fire siren, Travis observes a group of local
fundamentalist protestors demonstrating at the funeral of a gay student. The
protestors, modeled after Pastor Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist
congregation, receive disgustful contempt from their neighbors who consider
them a stain on the community’s reputation.
At school, this
day, Travis connects with his friends, Randy (Ronnie Connel) and Billy Ray
(Nicholas Braun) and together they plan an elicit late-night rendezvous with
someone he met in an adult chat room. The boys encounter Sara (Melissa Leo) at
this rendezvous and learn much too late that the beer she served them held a
potent mix of drugs knocking them out.
When the boys
awake, they find themselves imprisoned at Five Points Church, the assembly of
fundamentalist bigot Abin Cooper (Michael Parks). After a wordy sermon
concerning the perils that sexual immorality places on society, Cooper unveils
a bound prisoner whom the preacher describes as an immoral homosexual. With a
chanted prayer of “send the heathen to hell” the church inflicts the judgment
of God on the man through executing him via a bullet.
With the sound of
gunshots alerting the police, a somewhat horrifying and mildly thrilling
narrative transforms into a poor man’s Tarantino film as violence escalates
into a situation similar to the events with the Branch Davidians in Waco,
Texas.
During this
shift, the viewer’s understanding of the protagonist and antagonist falls
apart. The Five Points Church members who looked so cruel merely a few scenes
ago gain clear justification to fight when it becomes evident that the Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) has direct orders to kill every suspect
on site. It is almost as if Kevin Smith holds an equal amount of hostility to
the government as he does for Christian fundamentalism.
An Unsettling Massacre
Despite some
intriguing themes in the film, the execution of the plot leaves the viewer
extremely unsettled. Of course, unsettling does not equal a bad movie per se. One
of my all-time favorite movies is Requiem
for a Dream which portrays the brokenness of drug addiction. But where Requiem for a Dream depicted intriguing
characters in their suffering, Red State’s
characters only begin to convey intriguing traits right
before they die unceremoniously. The lack of a good guy and bad guy forces the
viewer to hate everyone instead of ponder the fact that there are no winners in
violence of any kind. And finally, the plot is condemned by the glaring
liberties it takes with logic.
To that final
point, I feel I should dive deeper. Despite clear evidence that the Five Points
Church compound contained both young children and INNOCENT hostages, the ATF
continues to blindly follow orders despite clear evidence that demands a change
in direction. Sure, the movie hints at the PR spin necessary to explain such a
massacre but, again, this decision occurred around the premise that everyone in
the compound was a free agent who chose to align with the Five Points Church.
Kevin Smith tried
his best to make a movie in the mold of Quentin Tarantino’s finest black
comedies. Instead, he created a mess of a film. The complex narrative pulls the
rug out from under your feet but the fall doesn’t jostle you. Without the time
to connect with any of the characters, the viewer feels nothing when the massacre
begins. Yes, the movie made me think and I hold a slight appreciation for some
of its depth, but the mess of a narrative offers enough evidence for me to
strongly suggest that you avoid Red State.
Verdict: 2 out of 5
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Pretty much, yeah. I felt that Smith really wanted his movie to rock, but didn't know what to do to achieve this.
ReplyDeleteI agree wholeheartedly, Ben. Despite my poor rating and disgust surrounding how messy Red State is in terms of execution, I honestly think there's a good movie underneath it all.
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