Red State

It has been a long, long time since I have watched a Kevin Smith movie.  I've never been  big fan of Clerks, but I enjoyed the juvenile humor in Mallrats and the ham-fisted Dogma the first time I saw them.  Unfortunately, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back was one of the most painful film experiences I have ever endured; thanks to all the winking and nudging, it is the only comedy to make my Most Hated Movie list.  Since then, I have steered clear of Smith's films.  Red State intrigued me, though.  Kevin Smith, a one-time master of filthy and stupid-funny dialogue, writing and directing a horror movie?  There is potential in that premise, assuming that Smith maintains his juvenile sense of humor and makes a solid slasher flick with plenty of smart-ass dialogue.  But you know what they say about assumptions...

Red State begins with three friends --- Jarod (Kyle Gallner), Travis (Michael Angarano), and Billy-Ray (Nicholas Barn) --- of roughly college age scheming to get laid.  Okay, here are our naughty teens; the horror movie is underway.

And yes, Billy-Ray's name is just an excuse for a mullet

Jarod has been frequenting a website that specializes in connecting locals for relationship-free sex; in fact, the "woman" (because, after all, it is the internet) doesn't want to have sex with just Jarod --- she wants him to bring two friends along for some simultaneous loving.  Sure, that's a little unusual, but men are simple and the trio takes the request at face value.  On their way to the sexing, the trio accidentally sideswipes a parked car to introduce a subplot that never really pays off.

Direct quote: "Hamina, hamina, hamina...!"

Instead of seeing the accident as a bad omen --- or leaving a note, exchanging insurance information, or even trying the State Farm jingle to get one of their insurance genies to pop up --- the three youngsters continue on their journey to satisfy their lusty flesh.  The good news is that they find the woman, and she is really a woman named Sara (Melissa Leo).  The bad news is that she is a little older than the boys were expecting.

The really bad news is that Sara drugs them and they wake up as captives of the extreme Five Points Church.  Huh?

You see, in the background of that story, viewers learned about the local murder of a young homosexual in town, and we see his funeral being picketed by members of the Five Points Church, which is a none-too-subtle analogue for the Westboro Baptist Church.  As you might surmise from the fact that they picketed a funeral, Five Pointers are not a sect known for their calm demeanor or reasonable actions.  As such, our three horny teens have been held captive so they may be executed in God's name for sinning against him.  What follows is an intense look at the rhetoric of American hate groups and the tension that comes from waiting for your own execution.

Ball gags: rarely a good sign

No, not really.  The ATF is eventually contacted, surrounds the house, and royally screws up, a la Waco.  And that, more or less, leads to the end.

Red State is not a typical horror movie, even if it starts out like your average slasher flick.  What could have been a decently effective premise --- teens up to no good are captured and need to escape --- quickly turns into a showcase for Kevin Smith to show how crazy extreme religious people are.  Smith doesn't add anything clever or interesting to the larger argument here, and I seriously doubt that anyone who watches this film will on the side of the hate group.  Even with Smith's heavy-handed diatribe, this could have been an effective horror movie.  Unfortunately, Smith adds a further twist by introducing a firefight between the church group and the ATF.  So...there goes the horror element.  Furthermore, the focus of the story shifts to ATF Agent Keenan (John Goodman), who is heading the operation.  Is his mission to save the three kidnapped boys?  Actually, he isn't even aware of them.  What the hell is this movie supposed to be about, then?

That's my biggest problem with Red State.  The plot is just a mess.  Smith over-complicates things, includes uninteresting subplots and can't focus on a main character or theme.  There are only a few moments where his trademark humor shows up, and the quips are obvious and not very funny.  I was surprised to see how poorly plotted, paced, and edited Red State was.  This is his tenth feature film as a director, and his ninth as a writer --- how could this film's direction be so horribly inept?  My only explanation is that this is Smith's first venture outside of the comedy genre and, without the crutch of dick jokes, his shortcomings as a director are exposed here.

And here, he displays his shortcoming for context-driven humor

Most of the acting in the film is decent, if uninspired.  John Goodman is certainly likable as an ATF agent, but his character's motivations are poorly explained and quickly discarded without any conflict.

To shoot or not to shoot: never mind, there are no consequences

Of the three sex-crazed boys, only Kyle Gallner has the opportunity to act, and I wasn't terribly impressed with his bored display of suicidal tendencies.  Kerry Bishe was definitely the best actor amongst the churchgoers,but her role was also the most over-dramatic.  I was disappointed in Melissa Leo's over-the-top performance as a zealot.

I was, however, very impressed with Michael Parks as the creepy/evil preacher.  While his character was never written with the intention of being convincing, Parks took a horrible villain and added some much-needed charisma, making this nutcase seem plausible, like a modern-day Charles Manson.

Add a self-carved forehead swastika, and you're there

There are also a number of recognizable bit players in the film; Kevin Pollack, Patrick Fischler, and Stephen Root all contribute next to nothing to this film.

There is a solid premise behind this film, but the story loses its way far too early.  I hate the fact that you never know who the main characters are.  Failing that, I should at least be able to clearly identify what the main conflict in the movie will be, but that is left as a second-act surprise.  I despise Smith's straw man arguments against organized religion, and I felt that this was another none-too-clever attack on a subject that demands attention and pondering.  To put it bluntly, Red State handles religious extremism with even less thought than Dogma. 

On your knees and repent!

Worse than the heavy-handedness of the religious story was the total incompetence of Kevin Smith as a director.  This movie wasn't funny, scary, or effectively action-packed.  It has elements of all three genres, but they do not gel together because they are rarely present within the same scene, much less the same film reel.  Personally, I think Kevin Smith is a genuinely entertaining man.  Even if I had never found one of his jokes funny, I would have to admit that he is a talented storyteller, if only because of his Prince anecdote.  Unfortunately, he is not much of a writer or director.  I would love to see Smith bounce back from this with a heartfelt story of his dramatic weight loss or something vaguely realistic, because his strength comes from the way he describes the ordinary.  Red State has him working outside of his comfort zone and the result is half-baked, at best, and truly dull at worst.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Every so often, I watch a movie that reminds me of the decade in which I came of age: the 90s.  While not as sleazy as the 70s, and not as absolutely stupid as the 80s, American pop culture in the 90s was still fairly ridiculous.  I don't often watch movies that are defined by their decade, but I made an exception for Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

"Ridiculous"how?  Two words: Butterfly Vagina

Before I continue, I have to admit that I am a fan of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television show.  I'm not much of a TV fan, but I have been sucked into that teen melodrama and found it surprisingly entertaining.  I am not going to compare the two, though; I believe that serial storytelling is vastly different than filmmaking.  I just want to acknowledge ahead of time that I might have a soft spot in my heart for Joss Whedon, who created the TV show and wrote the screenplay to the film.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the story of (not surprisingly) Buffy (Kristy Swanson), your average, run-of-the-mill Valley Girl stereotype, circa-1992.  Basically, she cares about fashion, shopping, boys, and using "like" at least three times in every sentence.  Like, gag me with a cliche.  Buffy's life would be normal, if not for the intervention of Merrick (a slumming --- even by his low standards --- Donald Sutherland).

Sutherland, contemplating seppuku

Merrick finds and trains the Chosen One in each generation (he's old) to battle the vampire master, Lothos (Rutger Hauer).  The Chosen One is always a teenage girl, and she always loses to Lothos; this time, it's Buffy's turn.  On a side note, though, Merrick has a worse losing record than my beloved Chicago Cubs; if this were professional sports, he would have been fired at least a hundred years ago.  Anyway, in a bit of plot convenience, Lothos likes to treat his only viable opposition as sport, so he and his vampire minions set up shop in Buffy's hometown of Los Angeles.  Can Buffy defeat the dastardly vampire leader?  What effect will Merrick have on this Valley Girl?  What the hell is an Oscar winner doing in this movie?  All this, and more, can be answered by watching this movie. 

But who would want to do that?  Buffy the Vampire Slayer is not, by any imaginable definition, a good movie.  You can blame many people for that, but I think the first targets should be the actors.  Kristy Swanson is, quite simply, not much of an actress.  Unfortunately, her character goes through a pretty typical story arc, so her performance seems even more bland and predictable than usual.  Donald Sutherland is pretty decent as a creepy old man, but he does make me wonder exactly what his acting standards are; does he look for choice roles, decent money, or just someone who will offer to buy him Funyuns?  Rutger Hauer had swelled to his current size by this point, so he wasn't as physically intimidating as Blade Runner-era Rutger would have been.  Hauer is only a little subpar in this role, primarily because his character is stupid (he deliberately allows his enemy to get stronger) and his costumes and makeup were occasionally laughably bad. 

Smirkingly bad, at the very least

Surprisingly, the supporting cast is pretty solid.  Luke Perry played Buffy's love interest, and he managed to have some reasonable reactions --- when weird stuff starts happening, he tries to leave town --- as well as some of the better lines in the movie.  David Arquette has a small role, but the banter between him and Perry was one of the better aspects of the film.  Paul Reubens doesn't make for a very fearsome vampire, but his comic timing provides some of the movie's best jokes, particularly with his death scene.  You might also recognize Stephen Root and Hilary Swank in fairly boring character roles, as well as Ben Affleck, Ricki Lake, and Thomas Jane in bit parts.  None of them are particularly interesting to watch here, but it can be fun to spot them before they were famous.

Vampire or extra from Wayne's World?

This is the only feature film directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui and I think I know why.  Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a story that, probably, shouldn't work.  The premise alone guarantees a fairly cheesy movie experience.  Kuzui doesn't go much further with the idea than that; in fact, I believe that the Wisconsin-ish levels of cheesiness present in the movie are due to Kuzui making lazy choices and settling for stereotypes and easy jokes.

Thankfully, no stakes-for-dildos jokes

I suppose you can blame a lot of that on Joss Whedon's script, too.  This is an odd script, though; while there are a lot of lame jokes and gags, there are also a few genuinely funny and clever moments.  For every Valley Girl-ism, there's a line like, "He ruined my new jacket...!  Kill him a lot."  I hesitate to say that the filmmakers butchered his script, but...this screenplay draft is a lot cooler than what ended up on-screen.

For example, Luke Perry's friend didn't look or sound like an Arquette

That's not to say that the movie is awful...it's just not very good.  There are some clever lines and it managed to blend comedy and horror together --- unfortunately, it was neither scary or funny enough to truly work.  Still, it's kind of cute for what it is: a stupid comedy-horror hybrid.

Unthinkable

With a title like Unthinkable, you have to ask yourself exactly what would be "unthinkable?"  That's right...the title makes you think about what would be unthinkable.  Is that a sign of a clever movie, or just a stupid one?  I'm not going to answer that question for you, and neither is this movie.

Yusuf (Michael Sheen), formerly known as Steven Younger, sent a homemade recording to government agencies, where he announced that he has hidden three identical nuclear bombs in three American cities and they will explode in just over six days, unless his demands are met; he will issue the demands soon.  What follows is an examination of the usefulness of, and the government's right to, torture suspects in extreme cases.  On the torture-is-bad side, we have FBI Agent Helen Brody (Carrie-Anne Moss) and her team, who investigate the hundreds of (usually useless) tips from citizens regarding possible terrorists on American soil.  In the middle are the suits, the higher-ups that want plausible deniability in case any torture is made public, but also want results at any cost.  On the torture-is-effective side, we have Jack Bauer a man called H (Samuel L. Jackson).  H doesn't legally exist because he is an expert in effective torture.  But his torture is well beyond waterboarding and the like.  Within a minute of entering the interrogation room, he cuts off Yusuf's pinkie fingertip, without even asking a question.  That is as nice as H gets, and he will never be that pleasant again.  I don't have much positive to say about this movie, but I will admit that H's methods were occasionally shocking and, dare I say, unthinkable.  The film goes on to ask a great many questions.  Is it ever okay to torture?  What are the limits to torture?  Can good people allow torture?  Torture torture torture torture?  You get the idea.

I am normally a fan of Samuel L. Jackson in just about anything, but this is the most cartoony effort I have seen from him.  And I don't appreciate the man for his subtle acting skills.

Case in point.

I think my problem is that his character is a mean SOB and the smartest man in the room.  He's thinking at least two steps ahead of all the other good guys, so when he does something awful, like castrating Yusuf, it builds to something important ten minutes later.  What's bad about that?  He sounds like Batman!  Well, the problem is that the film doesn't support his actions; this movie balances both sides of the torture issue and H is often seen as a bad man.  That's just mixed messages, folks.  Having Carrie-Anne Moss and her pseudo-emoting doesn't help the human rights side, unfortunately.  She frets and she hovers, but she is nowhere near strong enough a character to compare with Sam Jackson when he's cutting off fingertips.  Michael Sheen does a decent job, but his acting style (at least, when he's not playing a werewolf) is too subtle to compete with Sam Jackson.  There is a surprising number of recognizable actors in supporting roles here (Brandon Routh, Gil Bellows, Martin Donovan, Benito Martinez, Stephen Root, and Holmes Osbourne), but they are given absolutely no screen time or character development.  Director Gregor Jordan gets the point across that there is no consensus on the torture debate, but that is about all he accomplishes.

What makes this movie underwhelming is the sheer number of moments that made me ask, "Really?" aloud.  In an absolutely irrelevant bit of plot, Agent Brody's team is sent to question every single person they are keeping tabs on, which happens to include H's Islamic wife.  H, being a bad-ass, takes down (but doesn't kill) the first agents that show up at his house; he does bad things for a living, so who knows if those are fake badges, right?  Well, H is then questioned and then the governmental higher-ups have him released, only to return to the movie less than five minutes later as Mr. Interrogator.  What was the point of all that?  Why not just introduce him as the interrogator and cut the rest?  This movie was twenty minutes longer than it needed to be, and it's only 90-some minutes long!  And why did all this happen?  The CIA accidentally sent over a file on H and his family to the FBI --- and that is not a building block for any other plot lines.  It's just, "Oh, the CIA mail boy is stupid, finds confidential files, and mails them to random government agencies."

The worst part of the whole movie is the ending.  SPOILER ALERT, IN CASE YOU STILL WANT TO SEE THIS CRAPPY MOVIE.  All along, it has been said that Yusuf stole between 15 and 18 pounds of fissionable bomb-making-stuff.  All along, it has been said that each of his three bombs has 4.5 pounds of the fissionable stuff in it.  If you do the math, that adds up to 13.5 pounds of danger fuel, which implies that there is a fourth bomb somewhere.  I figured that out on my own, about a third of the way through the movie, but H is the only character that figured it out, and he doesn't mention it until the last few minutes.  So, maybe it's a twist.  That could be, but Yusuf manages to commit suicide before the fourth bomb is proved or disproved, and the movie ends moments later, with Agent Brody taking Yusuf's children out of whatever building all this took place in.  Fade to black, roll credits, and forget that there was a twist only three minutes earlier, where a nuclear weapon was left unaccounted for.  I have to admit, this is the first time I have seen a movie where the heroes are looking for a nuke, don't find it, and then the movie ends.  Normally, I would call that sort of plot development moronic, but in this case I'll call it unthinkable.