Review: Red State

Dec 24, 2011 by jerry    No Comments    Posted under: Movies, Reviews

THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS

THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS

I usually avoid Kevin Smith movies like I avoid eating pubic hairs off a toilet seat, but because I had heard that Red State was “controversial” and that it was a departure for Smith, I decided to give it a shot. Well, maybe I should have given the pubic hairs that shot instead.

For the sake of brevity I’ll try to keep the Smith bashing to a minimum, but boy does that guy ever suck at making movies. Red State is a contrived commentary on radical religious groups at it’s core, and that’s a noble cause because those guys are assholes, but of course Kevin Smith lacks any skill or nuance whatsoever so this movie ends up being a bumbling mess with no cohesive tone or flow.

The movie starts out like a teen comedy and we are treated to Kevin Smith’s trademark Bullshit Banter™ that I suppose we’re all supposed to find incredibly witty and hilarious. “Yo dudes! Dick! I found this site and this chick wants to fuck! Balls! We’re all gonna do her at the same time! Tits!” Needless to say, the three dumbasses that we are to assume are the lead characters in the film are supposed to be endeared to us now so that when they fall victim to terrible circumstances, we will be cheering for them. But don’t worry about it if that didn’t work for you, they are basically throw away characters that don’t matter a single iota.

So after an overly long sermon scene where we get a taste of how boring church is, we get an admittedly tense scene to illustrate just how crazy these people are. Commence teen slasher film as the hapless three dumbasses try to escape the clutches of their captors. Kevin Smith apparently got bored of this idea and it’s hard to blame him. It wasn’t going that well to be honest. Commence action movie mode!

We are treated to the most poorly directed, boring, gunfight committed to film. I’ve seen kids having water fights with those shitty water guns you buy from the dollar store that were more exciting than the garbage Red State was serving to me. I love John Goodman, but watching him hobble around from cover to cover under heavy gunfire was one of the most unintentionally pathetic sights I’ve witnessed in any film and I would like to slap Kevin Smith on the backside of his fat head for making him do that.

Speaking of Goodman, it’s about time for Kevin Smith to engage M. Night Shyamalan mode and unleash an unexpected twist! Nonsensical horn blaring saves us from the gun fight but makes us ask WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS MOVIE?! We are lead to believe it is some supernatural thing, maybe it really is God coming down from the heavens to demand a stop to the fighting. Of course, that would be dumb as hell, but given what a despicable mess the film was already, I wasn’t about to rule anything out. Well end scene, Kevin Smith changes modes again.

Let’s end the movie with a prolonged chat between John Goodman and a couple of government agents. Let’s have them exchange forced dialogue that expresses Kevin Smith’s “controversial” stance on the Patriot Act. Let’s also explain the previous scene’s nonsensical horn blaring with some completely unrealistic story about a group of ecofreaks not knowing there was a gun fight going on and setting off the horn as a prank against the crazy church people. Yeah, if I lived out in a small secluded rural area, I wouldn’t hear a gunfight happening at a nearby lot either.

You know what, let’s just cap the movie off with the pastor of the crazy church saying crazy church things in his prison cell and then have a fellow prisoner telling him to shut up. It’ll be hilarious! Perfect! Roll credits!

The one bright spot would have been Kerry Bishé as the token eye candy, except it sounds like she has a wind tunnel behind her face. I had to rewind and rewatch her dialogue scenes to make sure I wasn’t imagining the excessive nasal airflow punctuating her lines.

If it hasn’t been abundantly clear, this movie sucks and Kevin Smith is the biggest hack to ever make it in Hollywood. Red State struggles incredibly to find what exactly it’s trying to say and the very few lofty ideas it has fall extremely flat. It’s ultimately an unfulfilling waste of time and I encourage you to avoid this movie at all costs.

struggles incredibly to find what exactly it’s trying to say. the very few lofty ideas it has fall extremely flat. It’s ultimately an unfulfilling waste of time

0 out of 5

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