newjerseynewsroom.com

BY JOE TYRRELL

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

MOVIE REVIEW

Kevin Smith's "Red State" presents a New Jerseyan's view of the middle of this great country of ours: better fly over, because it's scary out there.

Finally making its way into theaters after months of other circulation and promotion, "Red State" has attracted some notable actors — John Goodman, Melissa Leo, Michael Parks — to what is billed as a horror movie.

There are some horrible things in the Texas-ish hick town (actually California) at the center of the action. But they come out of the mouths and guns of murderous Christians and careerist lawmen. One side uses Jesus, the other side Terrorism, but they both rationalize evil.

A project that has been in the works for five years, written, directed and ultimately distributed by Smith, "Red State" still has an unfinished feel. Dispensing with slashers to focus on real inhumanity, the Red Bank auteur serves up a lot of ideas, but he hasn't baked them all.

From the start, "Red State" gives the nagging sense that you've missed something. That's just like high school student Travis (Michael Angarano), late for class after being slowed by anti-gay demonstrators protesting at the funeral of a murdered homosexual. Who are any of these people?

Never mind, Travis and his pals Jared (Kyle Gallner) and Billy-Ray (Nicholas Braun) have made an internet appointment with presumed prostitute Sarah (Leo), and show up at her trailer expecting sex. But she has a requirement: start drinking.

"I don't let a man in me unless he's got at least two beers in him," Sarah explains.

It is not giving anything away to report that this does not end well for the boys. They wake up under various forms of confinement in the church of the same fire-and-brimstone preacher from the funeral protest.

There's a true tour-de-force performance here by Parks, a one-time pretty boy who matured into a reliable character actor. He is mesmerizing as Pastor Abin Cooper, genially spewing lies at his small congregation of relatives.

Cooper expresses "a perfect hatred" for the "wickedness of America." There's a lot of that, but mainly it manifests itself through "unabashed tolerance" for "Satan's instruments on Earth." Gays' crime, according to Pastor Cooper, is "hastening our demise as a species because they do not procreate."

Fun fact: After the 1918-20 Spanish flu killed 50 million to 100 million, there were about 1.8 billion humans in this world. Momentarily, the total will hit 7 billion. Rabbits may overrun Australia, but unchecked human procreation overruns everything.

But Smith is smart enough to make the Pastor shrewd about the message from our bloody-minded Middle Eastern deities.

"Does a god who drowns the entire world except for Noah and his family sound like a god who loves you?" Cooper asks.

Into all this, Parks mixes by-play with the congregation, especially the children, as well as the occasional musical interlude, "That Old Rugged Cross" and the like. Oh yes, there's also torture.

As well as Parks plays this very long segment, the effect is like being trapped in a closet with Fred Phelps. He's the vile Kansas preacher who leads protests at the funerals of dead American soldiers, and who is directly referenced at times in "Red State."