God hates Kevin Smith's dogmatism!

RED STATE (2011)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Kevin Smith has a career of making incredibly vulgar and often hilarious comedies, especially with those pot-smoking dweebs, Jay and Silent Bob. Although he has crafted one so-so romantic comedy, "Jersey Girl," writer-director Smith has rarely veered from his Garden State comfort zone ("Cop Out" being the one exception, the worst film of his career). "Red State" doesn't resemble a Kevin Smith flick nor does it contain any shred of Smith's personality. It is a crass, graphically violent and occasionally bizarrely funny and scary picture. It doesn't work on the whole, has some stereotypical characterizations, but it is a rapid-fire and dramatic change from Smith's ouevre and it is definitely welcomed.

"Red State" begins with a facsimile of the Westboro Baptist Church, known in the film as the Five Points Trinity Church, protesting a funeral of a gay teenager (the film could've made it more timely by making it a fallen soldier, as the WBC has participated in such events). This protest is led by Abin Cooper (Michael Parks), who believes (in the most earth-shattering and convincing speech in the movie) that God hates gays and punishes those who commit abortion and other perceived immoral acts. The story at first deals with three teenagers (Michael Angarano, Kyle Gallner and Nicholas Braun) who are looking to get laid with some woman in a trailer. It turns out to be female member of the Five Points Trinity Church, Sarah Cooper (Melissa Leo), who drugs the three horny kids and lures them inside a sparsely populated church where Abin Cooper is sermonizing. Trouble and much more ensues, including the introduction of a sheriff (Stephen Root) who has crying fits, and an ATF agent (John Goodman) who is ready to destroy the Five Points Trinity Church.

"Red State" may have the roots of a torture porn (I prefer torture play) slasher flick but it has Christian monsters who have subverted the Bible to suit their place on Earth and in Heaven. There are no hooded boogeymen armed with machetes or any Rube Goldberg contraptions of the "Saw" variety here - this is a militant church who hold firmly to their beliefs. Excepting Parks' monumental speech, the film doesn't provide much insight or depth into this group. Nor does it get too deep with the young victims or their horny desires from using social networking sites that leads them to this dangerous hellhole - that could make an interesting film. Every character and situation is practically one-note or two notes at best. Satire, no matter how topical, should be elevated with something other than cliches and some obvious preachiness. 

"Red State" does move quickly at 88 minutes and is energetically and tightly shot by director Kevin Smith and his capable cinematographer, David Klein. Smith knows how to engineer thrills and scares, even if a few of them are telegraphed. But "Red State's" impactful ending (as clever and out-of-the-blue as it may be) doesn't leave enough of an impact - the film skewers the Westboro Baptist Church and their homophobic messages that are filtered from God yet abandons its own ambitions by settling for endless gunfire and a massacre that almost rivals the events of Waco, or at least Ruby Ridge. The movie is blood-soaked chaos and essentially a horror movie with a slightly higher pedigree than "Hostel." What makes the movie sing is Michael Parks playing one of the scariest preachers since Burt Lancaster's own Elmer Gantry. Parks terrifies us and does it with a subtle sleight-of-hand that perhaps Kevin Smith can't even appreciate.