A Bird's Eye Review

Red State is a heraldic term for neonate American conservatism. Words that provoked such strong emotion just a few cold war decades ago, now have a re-imagined, end-of-days motif. It's also a calling-card embossed with a distinctly Aramaic font, perhaps with a Jesus logo in one corner, earnestly cradling an AK.

But this is a film as much about polarity as it is fundamentalism. You could argue that religious extremists are far easier to stomach in your own backyard. It might also be mooted that scripture-bending Svengali types such as Abin Cooper (played convincingly by Michael Parks) are fewer upon the earth these days, but that might largely depend where you take your holidays. Needless to say, writer/director Kevin Smith decided there was enough in the Wacometer for one more shot, and Red State - it has to be said - has a pretty good tilt at it.

The action is set-up briskly and without preamble, auguring well for pace. As a student of screenplay and bit of an all-round dick, I tend to pause the movie and time these things. Setup to plot point one? Usually ten pages, give or take. This does it in six, which is beautifully lean, but that's the trouble with script mechanics. Layers of deadening conceptualisation, befuddling the core of truth with their man-made imperatives. Did I say script mechanics? I did, of course, mean Christianity. (Or much of mainstream religion, for that matter)

What's nice about that early tempo is that it doesn't give you time to get comfy. No mote as such to discern in your brother's eye, mainly because it's too busy being 'sploded by semi-automatic weapon fire. One thing we do know: it's going to get much creepier and that's kind of all good too, because we don't yet care enough for any of the characters.

Which, as the action becomes more sedate and story threads converge like god-botherers on a doorstep, leads us irresistibly to another question - probably one only a Syd-Field-reading, know-nothing dickhead like me would ask. "Is there a clearly-identified protagonist?" Well no, not really. I mean, in a 'pick a card, any card' sense, yeah - but here's the thing: they're all really kind of assholes too, in their own flawed way (and I don't mean flawed as in endearing).

I mean, it's nice to see the juxtaposition of contemporary catch-all terrorism laws lending gusto to an already gustatonic governmental wrecking krew (spearheaded by a svelte-looking John Goodman, who seems not quite conflicted enough to buck too many trends). It's also nice to see  third-generation cult-kiddy, Cheyenne (Kerry Bishe) taking a stand for the middle path. It's even good that one-third of the original pubescent line-up Jared (Kyle Gallner) gets a late clarion-call for Unlikeliest Eleventh-Hour Root-boy in a Motion Picture. Collectively, their plights are monstrous and compelling, but individually, they don't have the viewer clutching strenuously enough at their rosaries for my money.

I mean, such script confusion can easily be cleared up with a dismissive "Learn the rules so you can break 'em, sonny" from Mr. Smith, and I'd take that. Because, for all the tortuous, last-third fiddles (I can only imagine how many drafts the last twenty pages of this screenplay went through) the film is in-your-face and snappy enough to drive the story, as Poe says, 'relentlessly to its conclusion.'

Whether you think that conclusion is satisfying enough is for you to decide. To forgive, after all, is divine.

Much has variously been mentioned of the movie's marketing and distribution methods. If you want to watch movies the way film-makers intended you to, this is a great way to start.

Four stars out of Five.

View this movie on demand by visiting the  Website. Don't forget Kevin Smith's SMODCAST pages either. Easily the best free entertainment on the internet.