Review #1,348: 'Red State' (2011)

By 2010, even die-hard followers of writer/director Kevin Smith were starting to think he'd lost the plot. After a string of flops and outright disasters that included the likes of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Jersey Girl and Cop Out (although Zack and Miri Make a Porno was pretty good), it looked as though the comic-book enthusiast was half-arsing it, and was never going to reach the dizzy heights of his earlier output like Clerks and Chasing Amy. It was perplexing, as anybody who has ever heard his podcasts or any of his impassioned Q&A sessions will know Smith as a highly intelligent and articulate guy with a real knowledge of his craft. But he hit back at his doubters in 2011 with Red State, a horror/thriller with a stellar cast and a real buzz surrounding it (generated by Smith's self-promotion). The result was still divisive among critics and audiences, but it managed to win back the faith of those who felt that Smith was one of the defining directors of the 1990s, as well as winning some new fans in the process.

The horror in Red State comes from fire-and-brimstone preacher Abin Cooper (Michael Parks), the leader of the Five Points Trinity Church, a sort of Westboro Baptist Church-style hate mob who picket the funerals of homosexuals. Meanwhile, a group of horny high-school boys arrange a date with a prostitute online, who will only agree to the hook-up if she can sleep with all three of them at the same time. Desperate to get their end away, they turn up at the trailer of Sarah Cooper (Melissa Leo), the bat-shit crazy daughter of Abin. They are drugged and taken away, waking up inside the Five Points Church just in time to witness the murder of a young gay man. He is bound to a cross in clingfilm while Abin spews hate speech, before being shot in the head and tossed down a trapdoor. It looks like we're in familiar territory as the boys try desperately to escape before they themselves are displayed in front of the wide-eyed congregation.

Only Red State takes a sudden tonal shift around the half-way mark, moving the action away from the captives and towards the efforts of ATF agent Joseph Keenan (John Goodman) - who is alerted to the Church's activities when a local deputy is shot dead - to diffuse a potentially catastrophic gun-fight akin to Waco. There are plenty of extremely interesting ideas Smith wants to explore here, but unlike his brilliant and elegant talks, he tackles them with a messy combination of violence and chaos. It's clear he's simply fed up with religious hypocrisy and the country's failure to tackle the problem, and you can certainly feel the anger, but you get the sense that the point could have been made with more care and restraint. In fact, the only sign of restraint he shows is at the climax, which is precisely the time he should have gone for broke. Still, Red State is enjoyable for what it is, and delivers a fair amount of surprises. Parks, who sadly passed last year, gives the performance of his career, truly relishing the chance to embrace his inner monster. Smith hasn't really kicked on from here, choosing instead to dabbled in television projects, but at least we know the Fatman still has it in him.


Directed by: Kevin Smith
Starring: Michael Parks, Melissa Leo, John Goodman, Michael Angarano, Kerry Bishé, Kyle Gallner, Nicholas Braun, Stephen Root, Kevin Pollak
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #749: 'Prisoners' (2013)

For all those concerned that Denis Villeneuve, director of art-house pieces Polytechnique (2009) and the Oscar-nominated Incendies (2010), has sold out on his trip to the U.S., then rest assured, Prisoners is a suitably grim, adult and metaphor-laden drama which just happens to be anchored by two Hollywood A-or-there-about-listers. Beginning with an almost unbearably tense opening hour or so, Prisoners soon dissolves into a formulaic thriller, abandoning the near-unbearable tension of the opening hour and packing the film with foot-chases and repetitive torture-porn, finding itself too caught up in tying all the many loose ends together for it all to make sense.

Whilst attending a Thanksgiving dinner, the daughters of Keller (Hugh Jackman) and Grace Dover (Mario Bello), and their neighbours Franklin (Terrence Howard) and Nancy Birch (Viola Davis), go missing. The only clue is a mysterious RV parked outside moments before the abduction, which is quickly found by Detecive Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) in a car park with an apparently stricken Alex Jones (Paul Dano) inside. After Alex is quickly released due to a lack of evidence, Keller is furious and unconvinced, abducting him and taking him to an abandoned former home in order to instigate his own method of interrogation.

Boasting Oscar-nominated cinematography by long-time Coen Brothers collaborator Roger Deakins, this is one of the finest looking mainstream thrillers in years. Drenched in grey, the miserable colour palette drapes the film in a feeling of foreboding dread. It brings to mind the beautiful and superior thriller Zodiac (2007), only without the period setting. It drags - and it does drag - on for 2 and a half hours, and the film is so lacking in humour that any realism the film was striving for suffers. It also stars Hugh Jackman, possibly the most effortlessly likeable actor working today, and watching him bang on the wall shouting "where is my daughter!?" - a line that should have been retired after Taken (2008) - is silly and unconvincing. The film takes itself so seriously that it almost becomes a parody of itself.

Gyllenhaal as Loki, however, is outstanding, and is a character I wish the film focused more on. With neck tattoos, a strange, buttoned-up (with no tie) appearance, slick-back hair, and blinking tic, it hints at a more interesting character than the film fully allows to develop. The film is more interested in not-so-subtle War on Terror parallels and comments on post-9/11 vigilantism, that sadly struggles to keep a hold of it's ever-widening plot and multiple plot strands, over-reaching itself constantly with scenes of stoic uber-seriousness. But it's splendidly filmed, and beautifully performed by Gyllenhaal, Dano and Melissa Leo (playing Alex's mother), which could have done with some heavier editing and less self-importance.


Directed by: Denis Villeneuve
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, Melissa Leo, Paul Dano
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #27: 'The Fighter' (2010)

Long in the development pipeline, and long something of a labour of love for actor Mark Wahlberg, The Fighter arrives just before Awards season, depicting a often-told story about overcoming obstacles to reach your dream. Wahlberg, who takes centre stage as Irish-American welterweight boxer Mickey Ward, spent four years bulking himself up for the part and learning to fight like a professional fighter. You have to admire his dedication, as his performance and the film itself is surprisingly excellent. After all, this story has already been told in the form of Rocky (1976), although that was told with a more fairytale edge. The Fighter is grounded in a very miserable reality, where poverty and crack-addiction is rife.

Trained by his former-professional boxer half-brother Dickie (Christian Bale), Mickey is going from fight to fight making little money and usually getting his arse handed to him. He is what is known in the boxing world as a 'stepping stone' - someone to knock out the way just before your big shot. Things aren't helped by the fact that Dickie is an unreliable crack-head, and his manager mother, is selfish and only sees what would be beneficial to her family, rather than Mickey's career. Mickey O'Keefe, a policeman and Mickey's co-trainer, believes him to be a formidable fighter, trying to do the right thing while his family keep messing things up. When Dickie is arrested and is jailed for a long stint, Mickey quits boxing and shacks up with feisty bartender Charlene (Amy Adams), much to his mother's and his seven sister's dismay. When an opportunity presents itself, Mickey must decide what is right and consider stepping back into the ring and fulfil his potential.

So far, so cliche, you may think. And you would be right to think that too, as the film does tick all the boxes. Yet it has never been done with so much dedication and heart, and this pours onto the screen for us to see. It's a film of (excuse the pun) knockout (sorry!) performances by a highly talented cast. The critics have raved about him, yet the Awards panels have failed to recognise Mark Wahlberg's restrained performance as the shy, quiet Mickey. He holds the film together as it's a film that needs a central character that you can truly root for, and Wahlberg nails it. Perhaps because it is a less showy performance than the other actors, but Wahlberg can stand tall after this, capturing the standard of acting that we have seen previously in Boogie Nights (1997) and The Yards (1999). It is Christian Bale, however, who is scooping up the awards, and has received an Oscar nomination for his painful depiction of drug-addled Dickie Eklund. It is a fine showcase for possibly the finest actor around at the moment, and you can only sit back in awe at his complete dedication to his craft. He apparently stayed in character throughout shooting, and he lost a lot of weight to portray the decimation of Dickie's addiction. Of course, he's done this before in The Machinist (2004), but here his acting overshadows the physical attributes.

The downside to the film is it's cliches, but I was so completely engrossed in the story and the characters that I just didn't care. It is difficult for the sports genre as a whole, as their is always something that has been done before. The better sports films of the last few years - Friday Night Lights (2004), Million Dollar Baby (2004), The Wrestler (2008) - also had to sacrifice originality for the sake of telling a good story, and it's the same here. Kudos, though, for director David O. Russell (who directed the fantastic Three Kings (1999) and I Heart Huckabees (2004) - both containing great Wahlberg performances) who takes an unfussy, no-nonsense approach. During the dramatic scenes, he simply points the camera and allows his actors to act, and the story to be told. He changes this, however, during the slightly disappointing boxing scenes, which are clearly influenced by Scorsese's Raging Bull, but lacking the magic and artistic flair of the 1980 classic.

Although it's never going to win the Best Picture Oscar, it is a worthy contender, much like it's protagonist. I hope Bale will received the award he so thoroughly deserves, and Wahlberg will realise he's not an action star, but a very good actor. A very pleasant surprise.


Directed by: David O. Russell
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Melissa Leo
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie