Red State

Red State

In the town of Cooper's Dell, a pastor is getting a bad reputation in the local area for his very christian ways and three teenagers think they have hit the jackpot when they get asked to take part in a three way with a woman on the Internet.

Now for anyone who hasn't spent more than 10mins talking to me or hasn't been in my bedroom; I am a HUGE Kevin Smith fan. I love all his movies (yes even Jersey Girl and Cop Out), podcasts, books and comics. So it would mean that this film would need to be Cyrus level of terrible in order for me to not like it, fortunately that isn't the case and I loved it.

Performance wise is quality is quite varied. Michael Parks is fantastic. His borderline eccentric Paster Cooper is one of the strongest characters iv seen in a film in a while. John Goodman also bringing his a-game with a fantastic mix of good acting and just being funny. My favourite of the cast without a doubt Mr Babble-On himself: Ralph Garman. Although being the Silent Bob/Boba Fett character in that he is mute, he simply awesome. The three boys in the movie were also pretty good. However, i feel the need to say my honest opinion, in that i wasn't too blown away with Melissa Leo, she wasn't bad by any standards, just a little dwarfed in scenes by Park's awesome aura. There was also the girl who was in the final season of Scrubs, (Kerry Bishé if IMDB is to be believed) she was OK but some of her lines, i thought lacked proper delivery; a particular moment included a Harrison Ford "And i thought they smelt bad........on the outside" like pause in between her lines. But that's just me nit picking so i don't sound too biased when i say its the most beautifully made of all of Smith's movies. From Clerks to this, its clear he has matured as a director and although the View-Askew films are legendary, its sad that we will only get to see him make one more film with his current level of directing skills.

OK the story. I agree with something that Jeff Canata said on TRS's review and that it feels like 3 movies in one. It opens with a teen comedy and its a strong opening, but then it suddenly stops that and becomes a psychological horror movie, involving psycho Christians with Parks, then it flips again and becomes an action movie with Goodman, it continues down the action route until the end when it closes with the comedy. The ending is one of most funniest tedious endings ever. I'll not go into it for fear of spoilers, but the ending is really good.
A lot of other reviewers have stated that the plot doesn't flow and this isn't the case, its just it cant decide what genre it wants to be until half way into the film.

Recommend: Yes, but remember this isn't primarily a comedy
Overall: 8/10