Radio City Music Hall seemed like kind of a strange place for Kevin Smith to screen his new movie Red State, and judging by the amount of empty seats in the venue it may have been a miscalculation on his part. Who could blame the guy though? Not really sure how touring the movie and charging $60-$140 a ticket is changing the paradigm of film distribution, but Smith looks like someone who knows how to enjoy himself and he seemed to be having a blast “lowering the bar” of Radio City, screening what is essentially a B-horror flick. I didn’t know much about the film going in, the tickets I had were acquired through a seat filling service for practically nothing, so I might not have had the same expectations as someone who dropped upwards of 70 dollars apiece for tickets, but I enjoyed the movie. Definitely better than any of Smith’s recent work… well, actually the past 10 years have been a complete shitfest, Clerks 2, Jersey Girl, Cop Out and the somewhat tolerable Zak and Miri. If you walked into this movie blind there’s no way you make it for a Kevin Smith movie, aside from a few lines of dialogue sprinkled throughout, it “looks” like nothing he’s done before, which is a good thing. Regrettably, as he seems to finally be hitting his stride as a director, Smith has announced that his next movie, “Hit Somebody” will also be his last.
The movie itself begins with a pretty formulaic introduction to the main characters, nothing new to see here, just the extremely well worn path of a group of teenage boys looking for sex… a cross between Porky’s and Hostel, it’s just not apparent which way the die is going to fall yet. Unfortunately for these kids, they happen to live in the same area as a group of batshit crazy religious extremists modeled entirely after the Westboro Baptist Church, with Michael Parks channeling a spot on interpretation of Fred Phelps. If you are unfamiliar with the group, google something like “dumb motherfuckers, Westboro” and you can read all about them. Without giving up too much of the plot, teens fall for the chick who said “fuck” on the Oscars, crazy church people intervene, hilarity ensues, oh and Milton from Office Space shows up as a local cop to elevate the Super Karate Monkey Death factor. Then the movie really starts.
John Goodman is the catalyst for everything that is good with this film, the minute he appears on screen it is infinitely more watchable. His take on the world weary ATF agent is played like a pissed off Dan Connor and he gets all the best lines in the film. As soon as he’s introduced, the story takes off in a new direction and it loses the retread feeling of the first act. There is also a “huh??” element to the story when you realize Kevin Pollak is in the film as Goodman’s ATF partner when they clearly could have gotten Todd Barry to play the same part a heck of a lot cheaper since they are almost identical in delivery and appearance these days. Maybe Todd is hosting celebrity poker in some alternate reality. There’s also another federal agent who looks alot like Ethan Hawke but isn’t, so maybe they used some of that cash for the Pollack “get”.
The second half of the film is a moderately tense allusion to the standoff in Waco a few years back and keeps the action coming with gun battles, hostage standoffs, and a few twists to keep things interesting. Most impressive is how Smith brings everything to a close however, he definitely teases the audience with a “holy shit, I can’t believe he’s going to fucking go here” moment of fleeting disappointment that is quickly relieved, and the ending is wholly satisfying. The crowd at Radio City Music Hall certainly enjoyed it, although I guess if I’d just spent $70 to see a movie I’d want to believe that it was the best thing ever too.
Immediately following the screening Kevin Smith came back out to introduce the cast and have them join him onstage for a Q &A session. Hopefully the cast isn’t following Smith for the rest of the tour unless John Goodman enjoys being asked such insightful questions as “What are your favorite iPhone games?” on a nightly basis. 95% of the questions were aimed at Smith and he was very straightforward and genuinely appreciative for the most part, but I can’t even remember a single question being directed towards Goodman, Melissa Leo or Stephen Root, so I can’t imagine they walked off stage thinking “I can’t wait till we do this again”.
Kevin Smith speaking about the original idea he had for the ending of the film:
