Set in Austin, Texas Red White & Blue first introduces us to Erica (Amanda Fuller), a seriously emotionally damaged person, who appears to be sleeping her way through every male she meets in Austin bars and her new workplace. She finds the job in said workplace thanks to her new neighbour Nate (Noah Taylor) who claims to have a semi-mysterious past working for the US military and clearly harbours disturbing predilections towards violence. This is heavily hinted at when he talks about his childhood in a scene that intriguingly foreshadows a lot of the events in the film's final act. The third character that completes the trio of central protagonists is Franki (Marc Senter), a struggling musician who picks up Erica (although perhaps it's actually the other way around) in a bar and and spends the night with her and his two band mates.
The first third of the film is distinctly Erica's story and the whole film could have easily hung on just the minimal plot developments here, aided by Amanda Fuller's truly stunning performance. Fuller was probably FanTasia Film Festival's greatest revelation for me when I first saw the film there last year, with her brave and impressive performance totally blowing me away. Also crucial to the success of these early sequences is Rumley's early-Linklater approach to the direction. Slacker is a film that instantly comes to mind in the film's first thirty minutes with the shot composition in particular sharing distinct similarities. The film as a whole also bears obvious comparisons to the work of Peckinpah and Larry Clark but Rumley moves outside of these inspirations and the film is, in many ways, uniquely his.
After the introduction of Erica and Nate the film then takes a complete turn and switches to follow Franki's narrative arc. Franki's mother is dying of cancer and he looks after her relatively alone, echoing Rumley's earlier film The Living and the Dead, whilst trying to get his band off the ground. It is hard to say too much about this section or the final act without giving away too much but suffice to say things do not go well for Franki. The final act is then when we see the film turn more towards horror and Rumley plays with the conventions of vengeance in films and also particularly the rape-revenge film. At the core of Red White & Blue though is a tragic and affecting love story that has genuine emotional depth.
The violence and bloodshed in the final act feels entirely narratively justified by the earlier scenes and the emotional investment that Rumley ensures an audience succumbs to gives the film a punch to the gut, an impact so rarely felt in contemporary cinema.
Shot by cinematographer Milton Kam in just 18 days, over 27 locations and on the Red digital camera, there is an effective reliance on intimate natural lighting and the film is visually impressive. In addition to the lighting, the aforementioned composition is also incredibly important in setting the tone and upsetting the mood in key sequences. The editing and direction are almost perfectly economical and even the occasional editing flourish works well within the narrative, only adding to the economy of not telling the audience how to think or feel but simply presenting the story effectively.
Red White & Blue is emotionally engaging, visually stunning and more arresting with each passing minute.
Red White & Blue is released in limited UK cinemas on the 30th of September and on DVD and Blu-ray on the 10th of October.