Red State (2011)

Review by Sean Patterson



"Like a good Christian."

Kevin Smith himself admits, on his popular podcast, to becoming a pothead in the last few years. I don't know if Cop Out was a result of that or if that project was simply doomed as a big-budget studio flick with a bad script, but I do know that Smith said he only did it for the work. With Red State he's back in the writer/director role that made him a cult favorite. He has shopped this movie around the country, doing q&a's with screenings. He is passionate about it.
Three High school boys use a smart phone app to find a woman who says she will have sex with them. The kids are appropriately juvenile. Smith's humor suits writing for immature young men.
The woman's place is out in the country in a place called Cooper's Dell, famous for being where some religious kooks live. The whole town knows the religious cult family. They, in the words of the kids' English teacher, are an embarrassment to the whole state. Think Westboro Baptist Church.
When they get to the woman's place she has them drink beers. The beers were poisoned, of course. The kids wake up in a church service, bound and caged.
Michael Parks plays the leader of the cult, Abin Cooper. Parks really relishes the role, which is obviously the part smith spent the most time developing. He really steals the show with his fiery old testament rhetoric.
This movie is very different for Smith. There are few of the humorous moments we've come to expect from him as most of the movie is terrifying and highly dramatic.
This flick could be seen in a few different contexts. It could just be Smith's, who is culturally catholic, take on protestant fundamentalism. Or it could be Smith struggling with his faith and the authorities who brand his new favorite pastime illegal. Much of the Christianity cited in the movie is from the most abhorrent parts of the bible. Genocide, slavery and murder. The worst commandments the Abrahamic God commanded. Even still, it could be Smith's reaction to the protests he garnered with his previous movie, Dogma. He was very proud when the Westboro Baptist Church protested a screening of Red State in Kansas.
On the way out to Cooper's Dell the boys sideswiped the Sheriff's car, so the cops go looking for their car and find it at the cult's compound. When shots are heard all hell breaks loose and the ATF is called in, led by Joseph Keenan (John Goodman). From there it's all gunshots, all the time. The movie wastes little time getting right to the meat.
These parts of the movie are well directed and acted. There is a nice scene with Keenan having one side of a phone conversation. The action is well-paced. Kerry Bishe nearly out-acts Parks as Cheyenne, the young cultist who tries to save the children from the waco-style standoff.
The action and death builds to a storm and climaxes in--a letdown. Did the production run out of money? Did Smith write himself into a corner? I can't say, but the movie simply falls apart in the last ten minutes. The denouement is all dialogue, which feels like cheating. This makes what could have been an epic commentary on religion and state power into a bit of a cop-out.