Tags:
Film: Red White & Blue
Year: 2010
Director: Simon Rumley
Writer: Simon Rumley
Starring: Amanda Fuller, Marc Senter and Jon Michael Davis
Review:
This was a movie that I heard about when getting into podcasts. I know that early into my listening days that this was brought up, but it's fallen into obscurity. I found this streaming on Tubi. It was selected as a featured review on Journey with a Cinephile thanks to my wife, pressing the button on the randomizer. I was excited to check this out seeing the synopsis and starring Amanda Fuller.
Synopsis: a woman attracts the attention of a psychopathic former Army interrogator and an emotionally fragile young man caring for his depressed mother.
This starts without sound. We see Erica (Fuller) enter a bar. She is looking around. She approaches Franki (Marc Senter) and his friends. They are Ed (Jon Michael Davis), Alvin (Nick Holden) and Carl (Patrick Crovo). Franki and Erica hit it off, so she goes home with him as well as his friends. Ed doesn't as he's married. Erica hooks up with the rest. This is off putting for Franki.
She then walks home. She lives in a place run by Marj (Mary Mathews). Erica doesn't work, but she does chores around the house to pay rent. Erica does catch the eye of a new tenant, Nate (Noah Taylor). We'll learn later that he's a veteran who was honorably discharged. He tells Erica that he has a pending job offer from the CIA, but he's not sure if he wants to take it.
It is from here that we see this young woman leading a destructive lifestyle. Every night she goes off to find someone new to hook up with. There is an incident in her past that this stems from and she is harboring a secret that affects Franki's life. We also get to see his story. He's an aspiring rockstar with his friends. They have an upcoming tour. Franki's mother is also fighting cancer and he takes care of her. We see that he's a good guy at heart.
Erica is resistant to befriend Nate, even though he wants to help her. He does help her get a job and she does do things to jeopardize that. When she needs someone, he is there for her. Erica's decisions have farther reached implications and her revenge is misguided. It is difficult to blame her though as it leads to a collision course with Franki, his friends and how it ruins everyone involved.
That is where I'll leave my recap and introduction to the characters. Where I want to start is that the synopsis is a bit misleading. I had this playing out a different way in my head. What we do get here is a heavy drama. It is that third act where this goes into horror for me with decisions made by characters. What I will say, this is a character study of multiple characters with good performances to carry it.
Where I want to start would be with our lead of Erica. We have an interesting introduction to her. There's no sound and we see that she is on the prowl. I like that without telling us, we see that she does this most every night. She goes out and finds someone new. The first thought that went through my head while seeing this was that she must be a victim of sexual assault. It made me think that she is out to either find sexual gratification or she cannot get close to someone, so she seeks validation from someone new each night. She keeps a book of polaroids of people she hooks up with an older picture on the front. The reason she is doing this goes farther than that which I didn't see coming. I did think that Fuller has an excellent performance as this self-destructive woman.
Let's then go over to Nate who breaks this hard-shell Erica has. He is a broken man. He was in the army and as we learn about him, it is revealed he was an interrogator. From the sounds of it, he was good at his job. I like that he is off-balance from the start of meeting him. That never goes away. This does well at showing why he is and he's having issues with acclimating back to society. Something happens to Erica and that makes him go out for revenge. This is done by another great performance, so credit to Taylor there.
The last one to breakdown is Franki. We briefly meet him at the start and then come back in the second act. I like what they do show that he's a good guy. His mother is battling cancer and he donates blood to help her. He has his band and they're on the verge of a European tour. His girlfriend apologizes to him for breaking up with him for a fling. Things are looking up. That's when he's hit with a diagnosis he wasn't expecting. This causes him to spiral and seek a revenge of his own. Senter does well in bringing this character to life.
I think then from here I'll finish acting. I like Davis as Franki's friend, but he's also an adult and he lives with his girlfriend as well as their child. He also owns a restaurant where he employs Franki. We have an array of other side characters from Erica's sexual encounters, co-workers and just other people. They all work to push our characters to where they end up.
All that is left then is filmmaking. Seeing that this had a runtime of 105 minutes made me leery. I'll be honest, it works. There are things that need to develop. Setting up the three leads that I referenced to ensuring that they all interact. It works. This has good cinematography, whether it is framing shots to ensure that the colors from the title are there. We are seeing a cross section of America and how decisions influence lives. This has limited effects, but it doesn't need them. What they use look fine. I also thought the soundtrack fit for what was needed. There are good things with sound design to remove it and force us to focus on what we're seeing. That worked for me.
In conclusion, this is a heavy movie. It wasn't in the way that I was necessarily expecting. There are deep ideas that are explored here with sexuality, violence and how decisions we make affect people. Maybe not always directly. The acting is great. Credit there to Fuller, Senter and Taylor. I thought this was well-made from the framing, cinematography and the use of sound design. This isn't one that I can recommend to everyone. It has an almost arthouse feel with a griminess about it. Not traditional horror, but it goes in the genre in my opinion. If what I said sounds interesting, give this a watch.
My Rating: 8 out of 10