Its almost impossible to talk about
Red State without contextualizing it, and that's really too bad, because when viewed in a vacuum, its a moderately impressive, grubby little B-thriller with a mean streak.
So here comes the context, Kevin Smith's films have been pretty much half-assed when it comes to filmmaking technique. This film is obviously meant to break his own boundaries both in style and content. Its a film coming from a guy who's big specialty was comedy that has little use for it, except in only the rare and ultra bleak comic relief. Its the type of film you can't really imagine a happy guy making, its angry, its cynical, and its lack of humanity or any sort of characters that don't suck certainly don't help in its efforts to build tension. So as a thriller, its a little slack, but for the most part works pretty well.
It works well because the narrative structure isn't content to stay with the callow kids who get in trouble in the first act, or the cultish nutbags who endanger them in the second, or the federal agents who intervene later on. The roving center helps keep things interesting, and unpredictable, and when those surprises come, they can actually surprise you. And the characters may lack depth but the performances are mostly spot on.
Its not a waste of time, but its only technically an ambitious film that hits the mark more often then not. Coming from any other veteran filmmaker or even an experienced genre technician this would be the same film of modest pleasures but wouldn't get much attention. Coming from Kevin Smith its a revelation, too bad I don't grade on a curve.
3/5
