Red State (2011)
Average Rating: 5.8/10
Reviews Counted: 81
Fresh: 47 | Rotten: 34
Red State is an audacious and brash affair that ultimately fails to provide competent scares or thrills.
Average Rating: 5.9/10
Critic Reviews: 8
Fresh: 4 | Rotten: 4
Red State is an audacious and brash affair that ultimately fails to provide competent scares or thrills.
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Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 13,104
My Rating
Movie Info
Red State unfolds in a small town dominated by a fundamentalist preacher, Abin Cooper. It tells the story of three high school boys who, on their way to an internet arranged meeting with a woman, end up crossing paths with Cooper. The encounter sets into motion a series of events that causes all hell to break loose. -- (C) SModcast
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Cast
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Michael Parks
Abin Cooper, Pastor Abi... -
Melissa Leo
Sara, Sarah Cooper -
John Goodman
Joseph Keenan -
Kyle Gallner
Jarod -
Michael Angarano
Travis -
Nicholas Braun
Billy-Ray -
Stephen Root
Sheriff Wynan, Sherrif ... -
Kerry Bishé
Cheyenne -
Betty Aberlin
Abigail -
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Kevin Pollak
ASAC Brooks
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Red State Trailer & Photos
All Critics (82) | Top Critics (8) | Fresh (47) | Rotten (34) | DVD (3)
Calculated to outrage and executed to underwhelm, Kevin Smith's Red State is like a dull blade slashing wildly, predictably and ineffectually at its target.
Top CriticIt's a charming if conspicuously unfinished film, a half-riotous, half-idiotic send-up of the teen horror genre with a vaguely hip political twist.
If nothing else, it's nice to see this director refusing to play by the rules of the multiplex.
Wants so badly to push viewers' buttons, but struggles to reach them more often than not.
For all its boisterous profanity and splattery violence, the film is more of a weary sigh than a sputtering volley of indignation.
The startling Red State proves that everything you knew - or thought you knew - about Kevin Smith is wrong.
Kevin Smith breaks with his lo-fi comedy tradition to deliver a horror story with themes of sex, religion and politics.
The characters are one-dimensional, the plot is a shambles and the preaching gets so tedious you'll be praying yourself for divine intervention.
It's an often-funny, sometimes precious, but always kind-of-scary little flick worth a note. If this was Smith's first film, he would be touted as a new talent to watch out for.
A flat, talky, derivative "horror" film that's not very controversial despite how much it thinks it is.
Taking equal opportunity swipes at Christian fundamentalist bigots and the US government, Kevin Smith's subversively satirical movie keeps its audience continually off balance.
One of the best white trash horror films in recent memory.
Full of controversial subjects and interesting characters, it's the story that ultimately fails.
If his performance were contained in some other film, a so-called 'serious' movie about religion and politics, for example, Michael Parks would be discussed as an Academy Awards contender.
'Red State' is full of many 'almosts' - it's almost action, almost horror, almost groundbreaking and almost excellent.
It's Kevin Smith, though, which means that "all over the shop" is par for the course, and the shop that Red State wanders all over is, for the most part, compelling.
A simplistic, poorly-constructed exercise in low-rent genre moviemaking. It's as if Kevin Smith made the movie just so he could promote it.
Director Kevin Smith rebounds in a major way from the Cop Out debacle with a heady thriller that subversively comments on religion, law enforcement, the media and gun control.
This is easily Smith's most mature endeavor to date, and it shows significant growth as a filmmaker. And that's what makes Red State both a triumph and a let-down.
Kevin Smith fans will be curious about Red State, but few others will be able to endure its tub-thumping attempts at topicality or its lack of storytelling skill.
As separate acts, as well written movements meant to completely undermine the state of organized religion today, Red State is mesmerizing.
Red State indicates a new level of boldness in Smith, resulting in his best film to date.
It's a really strange film, terribly violent on one level and on another filled with lengthy, long-winded philosophical discourses and blind alleys
Audience Reviews for Red State
Super Reviewer
It is sad to see that while the action is staged well and all the real life horror feels horribly authentic, it is actually Smith's uneven story structure which brings this down and occasionally destroys all the tension from various scenes.
Red State is very complicated and uneven work from director who is aiming for something far more complex than he can actually chew. This is mostly good stuff with political statement, but it could have been something great.
Super Reviewer
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- Sarah Cooper: How sharper than a serpent's tooth to have a thankless child?! You get down on your knees and pray for God's forgiveness!
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- ASAC Brooks: How much you think a cross like that costs?
- Joseph Keenan: You mean in dollars or common sense?
- ASAC Brooks: Oh, zing!
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- ASAC Brooks: You said this was going to be a simple in and out sir? Simple just shit its self.
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- Sarah Cooper: I don't let no man near me unless he's got at least two beers in him.
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- Pastor Abin Cooper: I fear God. You better believe I fear God.
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Latest News on Red State
November 29, 2011:
Kevin Smith Is Unhappy With the Independent Spirit AwardsHe responds to the lack of nominations for "Red State" by taking to Twitter with the hashtag...
August 15, 2011:
Kevin Smith Will Hit Somebody TwiceHe says his directorial swan song will be split into two films.
January 24, 2011:
Kevin Smith Announces Self-Distribution Plans for Red StateKevin Smith had a busy Sunday at Sundance -- one that started with protests and ended with an...
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