Red State - Action / Thriller

I'm not Kevin Smith's biggest fan. Besides Red State, I've only seen Clerks, Clerks 2, Dogma and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. His light hearted comedies didn't impress me all that much. They were mildly entertaining.

Red State, on the other hand, really surprised me in that it shows Kevin Smith going in a very different direction from his previous films. He deserves credit for taking a huge risk with this film but it has been very poorly received. I completely disagree with the haters. People say it's an inconsistent, incoherent mess. Blah, blah, blah......

It's very intense and gripping and I would argue that it's better than most of the so-called action movies that I've seen over the last few years. It has a great hook at the beginning and Michael Parks is brilliant. Parks plays the role to perfection. You don't have to agreee or disagree with the stance of the characters or the filmmaker. People seem to be offended by the film but it should only be judged as a piece of cinema, not as a document of real life.

9/10