Kevin Smith has always been an challenging filmmaker to support your examine on. His films haven't always been fabulous yet they've always had a sort of charisma that I, as well as many others, have enjoyed. Red spot is Smith's next outing and he's strayed far away from his approved ground. The film follows three teenagers who catch themselves as hostages by a family of Christian extremists after being lured in by an invitation for sex. Prepare yourself for a brutal and sadistic yet fucking awesome film.
This film is unique territory for Kevin Smith and he's not gone about making this it in the primitive scheme. He's done this off of his gain serve, building up buzz online, dedicating one of his podcasts to its development, setting up a sort of Red location Film School (named the Red area of the Union), refusing to do press work and organising a post-premier auction for the film at Sundance with which he then bought the movie himself for $20 to later distribute it on Video on quiz services in America. It's been an involving project to follow. Smith has taken independent filmmaking to the next level with this outing.
The film kicks off proper away and we're introduced to the three melancholy teenagers who are invited to an evening of the 'Devil's business.' None of the characters in the film are really developed, Smith's too busy throwing you straight into the anecdote but each of them is recent and has something vital to say and a role to play which in turn gives each of the characters something whole to latch onto. We're soon taken to Cooper's Dell, the home of Pasture Abin Cooper (played incredibly by Michael Parks) and his fundamentalist family. The budge slows a microscopic here as we glimpse Pasture Cooper insist a sermon to his cult, but this is the time to like Smith's writing as well as Parks' delivery. His words of detest are potent and compelling to hear; together Smith and Parks originate you squirm in your seat with upsetting dialogue that also builds up the tension and suspense of the foreboding awe as a white sheet hides the twitches of a man tied to a crucifix unhurried Parks as he preaches. Smith crafts the scene well by including shots of the followers listening intently, cutting to the kids innocently swinging their legs and one member quietly knitting in the corner. All these add to the callousness of the scene. It really kicks off when Abin asks for the children to leave as "things are gonna procure grown up in here." The white sheet is removed to sing a man wrapped in Clingfilm and the anxiety that's been building rises to the surface with paunchy brute force.
The film then steps up several gears, things initiate to go outrageous for the Cooper's as the teenagers crop loose and John Goodman is brought in to sort things out. Goodman plays Joseph Keenan an agent sent in to bring the Cooper family down; he too brings a spacious performance to the film delivering some of Smith's darkly amusing moments that do bring light to the sad elements in the yarn. Fortunately the choice to bring in witty moments are chosen well and doesn't affect greatly on the final product. An all out guns blazing brawl begins and Smith, modern to shooting action sequences limits himself to an array of mid-shots of the characters during the shoot out scenes however with friendly choices in editing he pulls it all together. I did wish for him to peer, however, other angles to enlighten a more visually curious sequence.
Red area starts off by ticking the boxes of a veteran dismay movie; it eventually matures into something more than objective apprehension. It's disquieting and unsettling but with Smiths main ability in writing involving dialogue the film closes through a gleaming monologue by Goodman's character Keenan, commenting in a silly satirical plan on America. With all the 'horror' that's revealed in the media about the conflicts elsewhere, Smith has surfaced with a terror movie that deals with politics and far right-wing opinions in the heart of a post 9/11 America.
Kevin Smith has gone aid to his roots in independent filmmaking and pushed the boundaries far, far out. Red spot is later to be considered for awards at the Oscars, so despite it's less than veteran distribution methods I suppose a peek of Red place, Kevin Smith fan or not.
4 out 5 Stars.
Released on the 30th of September.