Red State

Red State made sweet sweet non-consensual love to my expectations. With my popcorn and coke I bounded into the cinema  sat in front of my laptop with a big bag of peanuts hum-drumly expecting something similar to Kevin Smith's previous jaunts, Mallrats, Clerks, Dogma, etc, but apparently papa's got a brand new bag. I liked his past movies and all, but Smitty has milked the charmingly-nerdy comedy cow bone dry and he knows it. Now he's bopped that cow on the head and ground it up into the delicious burrito that is Red State. Good for him.

Red State state is choc-full of what Smith's other movies are noticeably absent of, GRRRRRRIT! Grit is totally underrated and underused. Grit brings the terrifying randomness and unpredictability of real life to the light, sound and motion in front of you. It sucks you into the psychological experience a movie should be. MOST other Kevin Smith movies were great and all, but they were more clever, nerdy mixed up discussions about pop culture and some whimsical grown-up scenarios, rather than 'psychological experiences'.

Red State begins as a horror movie, and draws you in like one. But then BAM, the real horror doesn't come from the gore or the tension (not that there isn't plenty of both), but the horror comes from the VERY real characters, who you wouldn't be surprised to see on CNN or Fox or some stupid U.S news show. The usual Kevin Smith social commentary is plentiful, but this time the commentary is manifested much more effectively, through convincing, edge-of-your-bean-bag situations as opposed to half hour lectures on alternative pop culture from Ben Affleck. Because we are watching a movie after all, not a... lecture. Genre-wise, Red State becomes more of a serious action/thriller, but the grittiness keeps the core of the film much scarier than any Hostel 7 or Saw 15 torture-porn. Word of the day being GRIT.

YET for some reason my main praise is for the tame budget. At four million, there's no pointless extras or helicopter scenes, the fat has been left out of  this burrito (still prodding that metaphor) which is refreshing, when you could use the budget of most hollywood pieces of shit to buy all the burritos in burrito world. The bag of peanuts didn't cut it as dinner, can you tell???  

BUT what is the message/question/beefy core of Red State? Religion is awful? The FBI are awful? Humans are awful? Naw. Its just a nice solid diss to the Red States of Americuh, with too many guns and too few brain cells. BURRITOS.