There aren’t too many overtly political filmmakers working in mainstream cinema today. All films—to a greater or lesser extent, deliberately or otherwise —reflect the society within which they are created. But directors who repeatedly and openly explore political themes are relatively rare, if only because the financing for such movies isn’t easy to come by. Oliver Stone comes to mind, but after that, “political filmmaker” is a label not readily applied to many Hollywood (or international) “names,” including Kevin Smith—at least prior to Red State.
To be frank I haven’t seen many of Kevin Smith’s films (Clerks and Dogma, that’s it), but I’ve been…aware of his career and Red State represents a considerable departure from his previous work. It’s not a comedy, although there are a few blackly humorous bits. As the title suggests, it’s political, although political without being about politics.
A small Midwestern town is the home of a tiny, fundamentalist Christian church run by Abin Cooper. He and his followers (a handful of families related to him) live in a fortified compound, emerging periodically to conduct protest demonstrations. The basic tenet of Cooper’s church is their belief in the powerfully pernicious influence of homosexuality on the world (seems a little narrowly focused, even for a radical sect, doesn’t it? They don’t appear to care about much else—blaming all the world’s problems from the economy to global warming on “the gays”). Three teenage boys, lured into a trap by an Internet personal ad promising sex with a horny housewife, are captured by the Cooperites. The teens discover the sect has been murdering gays, and they’re next (although they aren’t gay, through some convoluted reasoning they’ve become targets). A chain of coincidence and random circumstance leads to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms besieging the compound, which is fiercely defended by Cooper and his people. ATF agent Keenan and his men are ordered (as a result of some more extremely convoluted plot machinations) to take no prisoners from among the “domestic terrorists” falsely accused of planning a bombing.
There are still some “safe” villains we can all agree to hate—serial killers, Nazis, Satan-worshipping cults, and generic “terrorists” and “dictators”—but Red State treads close to the acceptable/unacceptable line with its group of homophobic, murderous Christian fundamentalists. Smith hedges his bets by adding the “murderous” aspect, since that makes Cooper and his gang more than trash-talking fanatics or potentially dangerous domestic terrorists. Still, while in real life few on the right would openly ally themselves with Cooper’s program of exterminating gays, his ultra-conservative, religiously-buttressed rhetoric is all too familiar.
The depiction of the government forces (personified by the ATF) murdering people in cold blood is also problematic. Negatively portraying fundamentalist Christians might be considered a reflection of an ultra-liberal attitude, but depicting paramilitary government agents slaughtering people in a Waco-like scenario (although it doesn’t ultimately come to that), is that standard leftist propaganda? Actually, “big government, fascist jack-booted thugs trampling on our rights” is a point on the spectrum where far-right and far-left thought seem to converge, oddly enough.
What can one say about Red State’s politics, then? Left, right, center, muddled? None of the above? Director Smith has said the film has “few if any redeeming characters,” but this isn’t quite the same as claiming objectivity. An underlying theme of the film is individual rights. Everyone has the right to live and worship as they wish…until those rights infringe upon someone else’s. Morality is a personal issue and should not be imposed from without. Is it better that a hundred guilty men go free than one innocent person should suffer? Is the government justified in curtailing constitutional rights to protect the nation? Does “moral right” (in this case, religious belief) not only supersede the law of the land, but also allow believers to impose their beliefs on non-believers?
Neither Cooper nor the U.S. government have the right to decide who should live or die. Ironically, at least the religious “fanatics” seem sincere in their beliefs and are certainly willing to die for them, whereas the ATF official makes his decision to “take no prisoners” on a personal whim, which is far less understandable and justifiable (this is offset to a certain extent by agent Keenan’s moral decision to disobey the order, although he does so belatedly).
Again, casting Cooper and his group as homophobic killers stock-piling automatic weapons (presumably for crimes of greater magnitude) adds a layer of ambiguity: they weren’t innocent people who were peacefully minding their own business when they were viciously attacked by the government. (One might suggest that choosing conservative Christian fundamentalists as villains was a political decision itself, although realistically a film about present-day domestic radicalism has little other choice: there aren’t many violent leftist radicals still around in the USA, as far as I know, and foreign terrorists are another topic altogether.)
Still, with the exception of Keenan and one other ATF agent, the representatives of the government are willing to follow orders and execute the “terrorists” (or anyone else, presumably including the young children in the compound). This mindless obedience to extermination orders from above is certainly meant to evoke the Nazi model. Yet even here Smith tosses in complications: the local sheriff fires the first shot, killing (irony!) one of the hostages as he flees the compound. Cooper and his disciples “return” fire with a vengeance. So neither the government representatives nor the Cooperites bear full blame for the ensuing shoot-out, and yet neither side is completely innocent, either.
Without being didactic or wholly one-sided, Smith manages to convey his message. Yet the script for Red State suffers from a number of logical and narrative flaws which somewhat undermine its effectiveness. There are lapses in continuity, muddled or absent motivations, topics raised and then discarded, illogical and unbelievable actions and statements, and a concluding deus ex machina which transforms a genuinely eerie moment into a throwaway joke.
A number of these problems may be the result of Red State’s furious pace (after a rather leisurely build up). There’s no time to elaborate, tie up loose ends, or give everyone a satisfactory chance to tell their story. To be honest, very few of the gaps and gaffes are noticeable as one is watching the films, again thanks to the rapid pace but also to the overall power of the film’s drama. Only later might you say, “hey, wait a minute, what about—?”
Red State is technically and formally fine, the movie is slick and professional overall: the production values are adequate (despite a reportedly “low” budget), the action sequences are kinetically shot and edited, and the film is tense and suspenseful and exciting when it should be. The acting is generally satisfactory: the performances that stand out are mostly courtesy of the veterans in the cast, who get the flashy roles—Michael Parks (really excellent as Cooper), Melissa Leo, John Goodman—although Kerry Bishé is also quite good as one of the Cooper congregation.
Red State was “road-shown” by Kevin Smith in the old sense of the word, i.e., he traveled around the country screening it himself, rather than selling the exhibition rights to a distributor for mass (or even limited-) theatrical release. It’s now available via video on demand, and will presumably be released on DVD (although Smith has indicated the picture will be shown in cinemas again before the end of the year, so the actors can qualify for Academy Award consideration). There’s no indication Smith couldn’t find a distributor: he seems to enjoy discussing the film with audiences after screenings, and while he’s not going to get rich from Red State that way, he has as close to 100% control as one can get, and that certainly seems like it’d be attractive to a filmmaker.
Red State raises more questions than it answers. It doesn’t tell the viewer what to think, but rather seems designed to provoke discussion, debate, and disputation. Smith deserves credit for not only doing this, but doing it within the context of a film which is engrossing and entertaining, not strident or biased.
