Red White & Blue (2010)

Powerful

good back-story, and good acting

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

This highly thought provoking feature displays characters who could have been any of us at any point of our lives depending on our upbringing. It's not only our parents and what we're exposed to at a young age that shapes our perception of the world. It's also their parents and so forth. It also shows that the best of us can be capable of horrific actions. Life can be so complex that there is no bad or good guys and revenge isn't black and white.

Going into this movie I was completely blind. Not knowing what this was really about I wasn't really expecting much. Boy was I surprised. The characters in this movie are amazing. Marc Senter's character (Franki) is definitely the best character in movie. We will get to that later. Erica is a very interesting character considering she has no self-confidence. I love how the movie shows that she sleeps around and how she has no relationship with anyone. When she meets her coworker you can really tell by the scene where she asks him if she can sleep by him that she wants to have a relationship but can't because of her HIV virus. Now when the movie shifted over to Frankie I had no idea where it was going. Once they got to the hospital scene then I figured it out. When him and his gang finally find Erica and kidnap her things really start getting intense. I love how Frankie's a human you can tell that he knows what he is doing is wrong so he can't let her go so he wants to treat her the well. With Franki's mom committing suicide you can tell that he is completely empty without her. So once he kills Erica and her coworker finds out her coworker goes crazy. Then the rest of the movie is basically him interrogating the people involved in the murder. I did not mind the violence against the child it's just a movie. Anyways I really like this flick I highly recommended it.

That's what this movie is: torture porn. True, the first two thirds of the movie are your basic indie flick about lost, tormented souls trying to find comfort on each other, or in the most desperate acts. Nothing spectacular, nothing new, but more or less well done. And completely irrelevant. Nothing of the character's dramas is left when things start rolling.The last half an hour is obviously what the director intended to leave in our memories. And it is pure gratuitous exploitation. The viewer is just being thrown from one torture scene to another, expecting the level of violence to keep increasing(and believe me, it does). When the last confrontation between two characters is about to begin, all the viewer can think is how graphic and sickening it is going to be: no emotional tension is expected, and none is given. The fact that the violent third act takes much less time than the drama doesn't change the fact that it is the violent stuff that Red White and Blue is about.It is obviously not a case of a movie becoming something else in the end. What happens is precisely the opposite: the long set-up is just an excuse for sickening stuff at the end. That will give the horror fans a chance to say they enjoyed a film with character development, and that they are not just fans of the gross stuff, etc. Pure BS. This is as much an exploitation film as I Spit in Your Grave, Cannibal Holocaust, Last House on the Left and the like. Yes, I am degrading this movie from its artsy pretensions to the genre it really belongs. You make enjoy this if you are a horror fan, but don't fool yourself.

Red White and Blue is not for everyone. This movie with grab your emotions right from the beginning (good or bad) and keep building upwards.There is no clear antagonist or protagonist; I'm sure we could label some, but it detracts from the complex interactions and subtext. This movie has layers and it will stick with you for several days. I repeat - this movie stays with you and reaches some dark places.The acting is very good and Noah Taylor is engrossing. I can not believe this guy is not cast in more roles, seriously. Taylor gives a stellar performance of the performance you almost wished you had never seen.I recommend highly.