Kindly old Northwest widower Brian
Cox wakes up early one Sunday, feeds his dog Red, then drives out to his
favorite quiet fishing spot for a day of idling. In the late afternoon, three
snotty teenagers emerge from the woods brandishing a shotgun, and ask if Cox
has any money. He tries to placate them, but their ringleader, Noel Fisher,
shoots Red. When Cox tracks down Fisher's wealthy father (Tom Sizemore) and
tries to extract some restitution, Sizemore refuses "to do the right thing," so
Cox exhausts his legal options, then plans his own justice.
Norwegian director Trygve Allister
Diesen and cult horror helmer Lucky McKee—working from a script by
Stephen Susco—adapt Jack Ketchum's suspense novel Red into a low-boil revenge drama about
people who never asked for trouble, and don't handle it well when trouble comes
their way. Cox gets hassled, but then starts doing the hassling, showing up at
the doors of his tormenters' parents, quietly pleading with them to take a
responsibility they can't be bothered with. In some ways, he's still reeling
over the death of his wife and sons—lost in another senseless act of
violence—but as he trails Fisher and his cronies, trying to goad them
into a public assault that will land them in jail, he never seems out of
control or crazily obsessed. He seems like an agent of righteousness,
trying—and repeatedly failing—to avenge all cosmic wrong.
Red's dialogue is a bit blunt, its
characters are too broadly outlined, and the situation verges on the ludicrous
at times, especially in the way these dumb kids keep committing terrible crimes
without leaving any evidence. But the movie isn't meant to be an exercise in
realism. Along with Shotgun Stories, Felon, and a few other recent "indie pulps," Red is part of a wave of low-budget
genre films that turn injustice into an abstract force ripping decent folk
apart. The film is keen on detail, from the scratches on the door where Red
used to ask to go out to the isolation of Cox's rural home, which stands like a
three-story, strictly rectangular monolith in the middle of a rolling plain. Red is a gripping reminder that bad
things can happen, even in houses so solidly built.