Red State: A Compulsively Engaging Mess

Kevin Smith's infamous 'horror' project, RED STATE finally hits our screens next month (Australian cinemas Oct 15) with a bucket-load of baggage. Smith has been talking about this project for almost 5 years now, generating a significant amount of intrigue around his first 'horror' film. The journey this film has taken to get to our screens has been extraordinarily rocky, particularly over the last 12 months (it's too much to go into here but for those that are interested there is a pretty apt synopsis of the controversy on the film's Wikipedia page). Smith's antagonistic turn against studios, distributors and film critics in recent years is a whole article in itself, suffice to say that separating RED STATE from this baggage has shown to be quite the challenge for many critics. The unfortunate result of this whole superfluous mess is that Smith has made one of the most interesting films of his career with RED STATE and it's a shame that it may get lost in this whole noisy scenario of 'Kevin Smith', the grandstanding character.

 

Let it be known that I'm not the biggest fan of Kevin Smith. In recent years I have come to despise his work. His last film, COP OUT was one of the most ineptly made studio films in quite a while and I would need to travel back to the 90s to remember actually enjoying or appreciating anything he has made, so going into RED STATE you could say that my expectations were about as low as they could be. So it's with no small degree of pleasant surprise I can announce that RED STATE is a truly fascinating film. Engagingly odd and defiantly unlike anything Smith has previously done, it is also directed with a definitive sense of style and purpose that has been notably absent from most of his past work.

 

RED STATE has a familiar set-up. 3 horny high-school boys looking to get laid connect with a woman online who promises to pop all three of their cherries. They eagerly set out one night for the big meet-up. They finally reach the woman's trailer only to promptly pass-out after imbibing some spiked beers she gives them and upon waking they find themselves in the midst of a freaky fundamentalist Christian service fronted by a crazy preacher determined to sacrifice God's sinners.

 

It's quite a straightforward opening and loaded with the notion that this is a 'horror' film we envision a relatively predictable follow-through but it is entirely to Smith's credit that the film quite quickly morphs into something else entirely. What ostensibly opens as a horror film, swiftly becomes a Waco-style action piece before concluding on a truly odd and unexpected note.

 

It's not unfair to call RED STATE a mess of a film or to use one of my favourite cruder terms, a clusterfuck. Smith's script veers all over the shop, ham-fistedly swinging at its targets from government to religion whilst negotiating bizarre tonal shifts that jump from action to horror to comedy at the drop of a dime. All this results in quite a compulsively unsettling effect and by the time RED STATE reaches its divisively oddball climax you are left with the feeling that anything could literally happen.

 

I can't conclusively say this final effect is entirely the conscious work of Smith. RED STATE as a whole is too messy, filled with too many ideas and directorial flaws to be considered a successful film. But there is an undefinable energy and excitement present that is infectious. It feels like the work of a filmmaker who is at the very least 'trying' something, which one cannot say about any of Smith's previous films for almost a decade. There are plenty of problems with RED STATE, particularly in Smith's direction which often leaves continuity gaps that result in head-scratching moments, but they are much more excusable than they have been in the past.

 

RED STATE is not a horror film though, despite Smith frequently calling it that. I'm not sure if Smith is misguided in thinking he has made a horror film or whether he is perpetuating some elaborate 'bait and switch' by presenting it as something that definitively turns into something else. Either way, don't expect a horror film but also don't expect any definable Kevin Smith quality that you have previously known. Love or hate RED STATE, one must admit that it presents itself as one of the most dramatic directorial re-inventions in recent memory.

 

Ultimately it would be quite a shame if Smith follows through on his threats to quite film making after his next project. With RED STATE he shows us a ballsy playfulness that we haven't encountered before and while the film itself is not perfect, it is never boring. RED STATE is a surprisingly tense little genre film that overcomes its messy characteristics to result in quite a satisfying piece of cinema. Who would've thought I'd write a sentence like that about a Kevin Smith film just 12 months ago?