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Title: Red State (2011)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Michael Angarano | ... | Travis | |
| Deborah Aquila | ... | Mrs. Vasquez | |
| Nicholas Braun | ... | Billy-Ray | |
| Ronnie Connell | ... | Randy | |
| Kaylee DeFer | ... | Dana | |
 |
Joey Figueroa | ... | Route 9 Friend |
| Kyle Gallner | ... | Jarod | |
| Anna Gunn | ... | Travis' Mother | |
| Matt Jones | ... | Deputy Pete | |
| John Lacy | ... | Travis' Father | |
| Catherine McCord | ... | News Reporter | |
| Alexa Nikolas | ... | Jesse | |
| Stephen Root | ... | Sheriff Wynan | |
| Cooper Thornton | ... | Plastic Wrap Man | |
| Betty Aberlin | ... | Abigail | |
The teenager Jarod invites his best friends Travis and Billy-Ray to have a foursome with a thirty-eight year-old woman. While driving to meet the woman, Travis hit a car parked on the road. When they meet the woman, she gives spiked beer to them and they pass out. When the three friends wake up, they find that they are trapped in the fundamentalist Five Points Trinity Church of the infamous Pastor Abin Cooper and that they will be killed. Meanwhile the church is under siege by ATF agents led by Agent Joseph Keenan that have been ordered to destroy the terrorist cell. Will the teenagers be saved by the agents of the law enforcement agency? Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Kevin Smith's first non-comedy film is a loose actiony horror parable about an extreme right wing Baptist Christian cult, who kidnap and sacrifice "sinners" as part of their services and three young idiots who are tricked into their clutches. A minor traffic accident on their way to the rendezvous inadvertently escalates until eventually it brings an ATF squad to the pastor's compound, but will they be in time to save the trio.
Central to "Red State"s appeal is a towering performance from the late Michael Parks, as Pastor Cooper, the devout head of the family church. He's charismatic and magnetic, despite the warped beliefs he holds and has engendered in his flock. His performance adds a credibility to the idea that his congregation would murder at his behest. The rest of the cast is full of recognisable faces, Anna Gunn and Matt Jones from "Breaking Bad" have small roles. Michael Park's son James appears, as does Stephen Root, Kevin Alejandro, Kevin Pollock and Patrick Fischler. If there is a weakness to the cast, it's probably in the three boys who make the poor choice to meet an older woman at a quiet trailer park. Kyle Gallner, as Jarrod, makes the most of his role as the defacto leader of this group, but the other two boys are perhaps a little underwritten and making us care more for them might have made their scenes of peril resonate more.
Smith's scriptwriting, despite veering away from comedy, remains his greatest strength. Dialogue remains sparky, and relationships (such as between John Goodman's ATF agent and his wife, his unnamed boss on the other end of the phone and his increasingly distressed on site team) feel realistic. Where it fails is the other great criticism that dogs Smith, the action scenes that make up the final third of the film are pedestrian and repetitive and drag on until we reach a truly surprising conclusion. I can't decide even now if I'd have preferred the hinted at ending to have been the truth, or the one we get, but it's a memorable ending.
It was brave of Kevin Smith to make a move so far outside his wheelhouse and he deserves credit for it, even if the result is a bit flawed.