Red State

With Red State it is abundantly clear that Kevin Smith wants to try new things.  If one of them is making a digital, self-distributed movie, I suppose he has succeeded; the film exists, it made a big splash at Sundance, and lots of people have seen it.  But as an effective horror movie or a substantial piece of social criticism, it's a failure.  The film begins with horny teenagers being lured into a horrific situation, and then morphs into a critique of Christian fundamentalism, American law enforcement, and the media.  But while it is a clever structure and a good idea for a movie, executing it properly requires a far more adept craftsman than Smith, whose films are always uneven.  Some of them, like Clerks or Chasing Amy, rise to the level of what I would call a “mess-terpiece”: they contain truthful insights that shine through the precious writing and sloppy directing.  Red State is not one of these.  There's no sense that the film has been tended to and cared for over a long journey from first idea to finished film, and instead of a considered exploration of complicated themes it feels dashed off in a couple of weeks to prove some indeterminate point about filmmaking.  I don’t expect pretension from the usually light-hearted Smith, but this film--his first that isn't a comedy--feels downright pompous and overblown.  That, more than the gore and violence, makes it unpleasant to watch.

Michael Parks is a dynamic screen presence, but his performance as the psychotic pastor and father figure to a group of backwoods fundamentalists is monochromatic. That might be fine is the role was smaller, but the scenes of his preaching didn’t go on and on.  The rest of the performances are flat--not just the younger teens but also more famous adults like John Goodman and Melissa Leo.  All in all, the film is poorly written, acted, shot, and edited.  While Smith clearly believes that Red State somehow represents the future of cinema, I have a feeling this might be the last time I see one of his movies.