Red State: Good, Bad, and Ambitious

Kevin Smith is unquestionably one of the most polarizing directors working today.  Ever since Clerks debuted in 1994, a cult of personality has orbited around the work produced from the View Askew universe with ardent fans praising Smith's snappy dialogue, his menagerie of vulgar characters and his "just one of the guys" attitude, which often manifested itself in unflinching jabs at the "film snobs" who were highly critical of his output.

Those same critics would say that Smith's dialogue covered up shallow characters and directionless plots, that his ego and opinions were more obnoxious and memorable than any film he ever made and that one needn't look any further than Cop Out as proof that his skills as a director are lacking at best. 

Love him or hate him, everyone paid attention to the hullabaloo that arose at this year's Sundance Film Festival when Smith held an auction for the distribution rights to Red State, his pet project horror film that the Weinsteins wouldn't touch, and ended up purchasing then himself for $20.  As the grand scheme for self-distribution kicked into gear, both lovers and haters had to take notice at the gamut of buzz that Red State began to attract with some saying it's the best film Smith has ever done, others saying it's the worst and even more saying it's unlike anything he's ever done before.  And you know what?  They're all right.

Red State begins with a protest.  As Travis (Michael Angarano) is being driven to school, he passes the funeral of a local homosexual teen, who was recently found murdered.  Angrily protesting the funeral with signs of "Anal Penetration = Eternal Damnation" and similar messages, the members of the Five Points Church have long attracted the ire of local and national communities with their outspoken views on the eternal torment awaiting the homosexuals and homosexual supporters within this country.  So inflammatory is their bile that the insular church has been forced to construct a wall around its compound to protect themselves from the threats of physical violence. 

None of this matters to Travis and his friends, Jarod (Kyle Gallner) and Billy-Ray (Nicholas Braun) though – they're teenage guys.  Number one priority for them?  Fucking.  That's why they decide to take a trip out into the woods late at night to meet up with a woman they found online who's promised to satisfy all three of them.  Unfortunately for the boys, their dreams of promiscuity are dashed on the rocks of roofies as the would be slut is actually Sara (Melissa Leo), daughter of Abin Cooper (Michael Parks), the charismatic patriarch of the Five Points Church, who has arranged the ploy to lure the morally bankrupt into a trap intended to rid the world of deviants.

All hope seems lost for the boys until the arrival of Deputy Pete (Matt Jones), dispatched by the local Sheriff Wynan (Stephen Root) to find the young hooligans (see: our beleaguered protagonists) who sideswiped his car while he was, as he says, making plans for he and his wife's 19th anniversary.  In all actuality, the man with the star had parked on the side of a heavily wooded road in the dead of night to engage in an extramarital homosexual affair. 

Turns out Deputy Pete is no hope at all as he's quickly dispatched by members of the church, forcing the good sheriff to enlist the help of the ATF with a task force led by Agent Joseph Keenan (John Goodman), who has already been investigating the church for a while on claims that they're stockpiling enough weapons to form their own private army.

Not much room in this universe for the one-sided banter of Jay and Silent Bob, is there?  With Red State, Smith has made a dramatic departure from everything he's ever done before, for once using the medium that made him famous to say something far more profound and resonant than just what he thinks of Magnolia.  Attacking the rampant intolerance with which we have grown so complacent since 9/11, Red State is an effective horror film because it preys on the fears we already have as Americans of both what is and what could be. 

In the what could be column, Smith has clearly taken a look at Fred Phelps' gang of 1st Amendment exercisers along with the increasing steps people are taking to shut them out and wondered how far such a group would be willing to go to usher in what they feel to be ultimate and imminent judgment.  This would be terrifying enough if not for the eerie and uncomfortable similarities between the moral executive decisions made by the Five Points Church to label all sexual deviants as evil and the bureaucratic executive decisions made by the ATF officials to label the church as "domestic terrorists" worthy of being shot on sight.  Smith recognizes that evil exists in many forms in the world and it's not always those who yell the loudest who are capable of the most atrocious.

Though Smith has also once again teamed with longtime DP collaborator David Klein, the aesthetic has completely changed.  Shot entirely on the digital RED camera, Red State has that shined up gritty look that many horror films suffer from these days, but it works in this context to enhance the comment on the veneer that both the church and the government put forth.  Gone away is also, apparently, the tripod, replaced by tense handheld that work to add to an already unsettled atmosphere concocted by the spooky yet great performances of Melissa Leo and Michael Parks. 

Still, for all the film's strengths, there are just as many weaknesses.  Smith has shown in Red State that he has progressed as a filmmaker, but without scenes of witty banter, he struggles as a writer to fill the holes with relevant material.  Early in the film, an establishing scene showcases Abin Cooper's mastery over his congregation through the use of charisma and scriptural manipulation, but it drags on for at least 5 minutes and greatly bogs down the flow of what had become a pretty fluidly moving first act.  Similarly, near the end of the film, we're meant to believe that an ATF superior officer would utter the phrase, "because honestly?  Fuck those people" during a mission debriefing.

For those of you old enough to remember, references to the ATF may kick up images of Waco, Texas and the infamous showdown between government forces and the Branch Davidians that resulted in the deaths of four agents and six followers of David Koresh.  Smith seems to recall this as well because while he devotes the first half of Red State to building a tense, psychological horror film, he devotes the second half to a second rate action film.  The shift in tone is jarring for two reasons: 1) because not enough time or effort had been devoted to getting to know the main characters and 2) because Smith will never be mistaken for Michael Mann. 

Along the way, Smith hits a few points a bit too on the nose and unceremoniously dumps a plot thread in Wynan's closet homosexuality that could've had some real moral and narrative resonance.  Clearly, Smith isn't used to tackling such weighty issues and what results is an ambitious film that stumbles quite a few times along the way, but he should be applauded for trying to break out the shell that he set up for himself.  Because of that and because of how you may have felt about Smith beforehand, Red State could either be the best film he's ever made or – Cop Out aside – the worst.