User reviews

Noah Taylor really shines in this movie. He was perfect for the role. There are no good guys here just bad people and worse people. Don't watch this movie unless you want to be brought down a few emotional steps.

Emily (Amanda Fuller) is a drifting through life soul, who fills in the void of her existence by having sex with pretty much any guy she meets. She strikes up a hesitant platonic friendship with Nate (Noah Taylor), a psychopathic Iraq war veteran. Nate doesn't seem too pushed on laying her, and seems to prefer to regale her with left field tales of him torturing animals as a psychopathic kid.

Franki (The Lost's Marc Senter) is a rather immature musician, with dreams of making it big, all the while caring for his cancer stricken mother. A drunken encounter with Emily will set off an event which will have horrific consequences for them both. This in turn will trigger off a horrible, brutal and uncompromising revenge...

Unfortunately, I can't reveal anything else about this film without spoiling things, as it takes time to get to its revelation. Red White And Blue is a very slow burning character study piece, which makes its third act all the more shocking. This is NOT an exploitation flick, and any fans of exploitation revenge films should very much bear this in mind, as the film takes over an hour to setup the circumstances for its revenge payoff. However, it's a damn good film in its own right, with excellent performances all around, and an unusual outlook on its characters.

Emily for example is at least partly at fault for the consequences which effect her, and Franki is no typical screen villain here, but is rather a likable everyman. Nate, while clearly a psychopath is however in no way proactively aggressive, and basically nobody concerned fills in the required role one would expect for revenge films. Basically, it's an art-house film as far as I'm concerned, but it works.

The film itself looks great, with the first slow burning half consisting of bus stops, blue collar lunch areas and seedy looking dodgy bars, and it has a nicely gritty warts n all white trash vibe to it.

Again, fans of exploitation or shallow revenge films, take note, as this will not be what you're expecting, particularly from its misleading youtube trailer, but my advice is to stick it through, as it's a great revenge film, and a great film in its own right, that manages to shock in its third act via its sheer uncompromising nature

7/10. Won't be to everyone's tastes but I personally quite liked it, and anyone who liked Shane Meadows Dead Man's Shoes should find much to like here.

Little Deaths was my cup of tea. I liked it and noticed the part called Bitch directed by Simon Rumley, the director behind Red White and Blue. From shot one you know what kind of flick this turns out. An uneasy film with disturbing moments coming from all sides.

We start to know Erica, a girl who f*cks around, she just doesn't care who it is but be advised, she only do it ones , no questions, no love. And the first minutes you see Erica (Amanda Fuller) having sex all the time. Old people, 3 in one time, it just doesn't care. But she comes across an ex-Iraq veteran called Nate (Noah Taylor) who has an interest in her. But he's the only one she doesn't want to have sex with. Slowly we start to know both and some guys Erica had sex with. From there on you can't see what is coming and it moves slowly in some kind of arty way. But it is the excellent performances that kept you attracted to the screen. Just when you think were is this going things go wrong with one guy she had sex with. HIV enters in his life. Bad thing, and this flick turns into a disturbed part.

Clearly not for everybody. It do have some sickening parts. But the way it was shot and the use of piano as score gives it that arty feeling. i should classify it under a revenge flick but not with a horror overtone.

Gore 1,5/5 Nudity 2,5/5 Effects 2/5 Story 3,5/5 Comedy 0/5

This movie seems to be two halves. Amanda Fuller's Erica makes her way through the slow grind of life with anonymous sexual encounters (her choice) and a long series of jobs and addresses. She meets Noah Taylor's Nate, and begins to thaw.

This was probably my first disagreement with the film...I wasn't sure if I believed she would become close to him. Nate is a construct, a theme from the director, but rarely a flesh and blood creation I could relate to.

The rest of the film relates to Marc Senter's Franki, stuck in a job he doesn't care about, always chasing rainbows with a girlfriend who looks elsewhere, and a dated band waiting for superstardom. He takes care of his mother, a sweet and slightly defeated woman who is probably the most achingly realistic character in the film. I truly cared about these people. The happiness they feel when their lives seem to be turning around is the film's emotional and creative high point.

Amanda Fuller and Marc Senter have some strong scenes but the movie steadily fades, with the last section mostly being about an entry into shock value, more than what suited the characters or plots.

I'd love to have seen another version of this movie, without Nate.

The horror genre seems to generate far more than its fair share of absolute duds - and this is definitely one of them. The opening scenes, which would do a 1970's soft core porn flick proud, set the (very low) tone for this film. The filming also put me in a nostalgic frame of mind - it is reminiscent of a 1960's home movie. The plot is wafer thin and not worth wasting either my time writing about it, or your time reading same. The cast? Noah Taylor is suitably psychopathic, although he seems a little weedy for an Iraq war vet - perhaps he was a computer geek in intelligence. And what luck, he works in a DIY store - that would explain the seemingly inexhaustible supply of duct tape! The balance of the cast would appear to have very promising careers - flipping burgers in some fly-blown truck stop on route whatever just outside Nowhereville, USA. This little disaster was written, produced and directed by Simon Rumley - a combination of roles that challenges even the genuinely talented. Filled with dread, I checked the list of credits for Mr Rumley - I am very pleased to say it is mercifully short. Long may it remain so.

If you turn away from the movie after the very hard and maybe even too explicit (though it really isn't, but it feels like it is) beginning, you will miss out on the why. You won't be able to see where the director wanted to take this. And it would be a shame. This is as "down and dirty" as a movie can go. From cinematography, acting and story/character (development).

It might not be your cup of tea of course (nothing glossy to be found here), but if you let yourself into the story and the characters (with all their flaws, of whom they have many), then you will be rewarded with a very weird and angry story. It won't pull any punches either (whether you like that or not) and stays true to it's grittiness throughout. One of the better movies I watched in 2010 (and I watched quite a few)

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.

The reason I gave this movie a 4/10 was because of it's original plot and story-line. Other than the originality of the film it was all around a pretty shitty movie. I felt that the acting was horrible, the characters were all pretty lame, and the climax was below average. I have seen many movies like this one, and most of them were better: ex. I Saw The Devil, Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, Lady Vengeance, Oldboy, just to name a few. The movie depicts a woman who whores herself out just for the satisfaction of sex, her neighbor is a creepy ex-military. They have a friendship but all of that changes when one of her past sex partners finds her to 'talk' about something important. Things escalate and get violent. I don't want to spoil the story so I'll leave it at that, and in a word of advice, I would suggest skipping this one.

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.

You may find it bewildering that I refer to it as a war story or to put it perhaps more accurately a post war story. I think this is as accurate a genre as any other as given here by member critics (I hardly ever indulge the professional critics).

It is clear that the protagonist is not suffering from PTSD or whatever the current nomenclature is, he makes that very clear from the start.

The film is divided into two but either half depends upon the other. It is a relatively deep movie but only if the viewers are capable of deep pondering themselves. There is much that is implied and much that is not said.

All in all a worthwhile movie at an almost prescient time as CIA operatives enter Libya.

This movie really affected me right from the beginning. I felt drawn in hanging onto every word and movement of Emily (The main female character) and Nate (The post traumatic Iraq war Veteran).

Unfortunately I can't really go into too much detail on the plot creating a rather boring review but I really wanted to let people know just how enticing and well made this movie was. This was one of the best Drama revenge movies I have ever seen. It was so realistic to me it was like watching something real. The emotions I felt towards the characters is not something I normally experience in watching a movie but the bleakness and story lines of each character was just so real to me.

I found the relationship between Emily and Nate to be especially captivating. Two outcasts who are thoroughly screwed up very slowly make this special bond that they seemed to never have in life before. You don't really know what to make of the two with his history of torture and hers of being extremely unemotional and sexually promiscuous. You're not really sure what to make of the relationship until things unfold and you realize what's really going on.

Franki, the third main character in the movie is your typical stupid kid whose dreams are to make it big with his band. He cares for and loves his cancer stricken Mother very much. When he has an encounter with Emily it causes his whole world to spin out of control and loses his sanity.

If you miss this movie you are missing out on a good one. I went in thinking it would be a gore feast but it wasn't, it was actually very tame on the gore. Instead I went through an emotional roller-coaster that lasted from beginning to end. This movie is a must see.

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There are many things I don't like, being a skeptical horror/cult fanatic, but only a few things I absolutely cannot stand. One of the things I truly hate is reading and hearing everywhere (on internet forums, in festival reports, in specialized horror magazines, ...) that a certain film is extremely shocking and violent, only to then conclude this totally isn't the case!

Judging by the number of praising quotes on the DVD-cover, "Red, White & Blue" supposedly is a raw and uncompromising revenge exploitation/thriller, but it is one of the dullest, whiniest, and most frustratingly uneventful films I ever had to struggle through. To make it even worse, if that's even possible, it's also an incredibly pretentious flick. You can almost hear writer/director Simon Rumley think: "My movie is so much better than the others..."

"Red, White & Blue" exists of fake situations, utterly implausible characters, and suspense that continuously gets undercut by lousy editing and a cowardly narrative structure. There's a girl who has sex with literally every man who crosses her path, but the one man she refuses to sleep with - a weirdo Iraq veteran - platonically loves her so much that he goes on a killing rampage for her. Well, we can only assume he goes on a rampage, because this boring movie shows practically nothing. Whenever a potentially interesting event might happen, the scene abruptly ends or switches to something irrelevant. I found myself swearing at the screen numerous of times, and when finally some violence was shown explicitly, I couldn't care less anymore.

This film reminded me mostly of Audition and how the mood changes from drama to sinister to disturbing.

The film follows the sexual goings-on of a young girl named Erica, who we believe to be troubled in some way or another. She has a friend, Nate, in whom she can confide and who appears to be genuinely concerned for her. A side-plot, about a semi-successful garage-band, runs in parallel from the point they all get in the sack with Erica, on a drunken band team-building exercise. These two plot lines come slamming back together in a big way, just after the middle of the movie.

Once this film gets going, it really grabs hold of you and doesn't let go, until after the gut-wrenching climax. The build-up is slow paced but justifiably so, as it needs to bring true depth to the characters, otherwise the latter half of the story wouldn't work.

Unlike movies where the good and bad guys are clear cut, this one really blurs the edges, so that we're never quite sure who's in the right and who's not. I'm saying this is a good thing for this movie, because it really makes the viewer question the morality in each scene and find it harder to predict where the movie us is ultimately heading.

There's little I would criticise. What it does, it does very well - all credit to the director and cast.

I wouldn't categorise this as a horror (unless we count Franki's earrings), it's more of an intense drama/thriller but Red White and Blue is one of the best films I have seen this year and would recommend it to anyone who has the stomach for this sort of thing.

Totally perplexed with the high rating on this one. Figures that I didn't spend enough time going thru all of the reviews, and just assumed this movie would be great, based upon 10 stars, and a 6.5 overall rating. I trust the masses too much on IMDB perhaps? Anyhoo.....

The acting in this movie is pretty poor, and the pace of said movie is also on track to make you hit the pause button more then once. If you do, you may want to just turn it off. I also agree with other reviews about scenes ending too abruptly... the movie should have ended sooner honestly. And don't get me started on the horrible musical band portrayal, or the never ending supply of duct tape that mysteriously appears. Thanks Home Depot!

If you have gotten to the end of this review, watch something else.

One of the most horrific films I've seen in a long time. It's a gruesome, chilling tale. If you're squeamish, I wouldn't recommend it. The first half can become tiresome with unlikable characters. Then, everything reconnects with unexpected brutality. Rating this film was difficult; so I opted for an average of 3 stars.