Red Rage

As wilfully bonkers and semi-incoherent as Red Rage is there’s a kernel of a story here that maybe just slipped away into La La Land in the quest of originality.

Vicious killers Ella (Fernanda Diniz) and Oscar (Jack Turner) we meet at a bar at a meeting with his mother (Linda Marlowe) who is all sunglasses and bad-language, playing up the part of the matriarch as she abuses Ella. Oscar meanwhile is trying to find out about his brother William but there’s little sense to be had from mum.

With a Morriconesque soundtrack to accompany the two go out on a killing spree with the express intention of wiping out the sellers of a highly addictive drug called Red Devil a substance smoked in a pipe with plumes of red smoke that has its users killing for it.

Their target is Hugo (Ian Reddington) an ageing dealer in his den who is visited by Gabriel (Matt Lapinskas) wearing a fedora and feather collar and begin a strange very wordy relationship. As the story unfolds it becomes clear that Oscar is a religious zealot and Ella bordering on madness. Into this is the addicted Riley (Jamie Crew) looking for a hit, dishevelled and covered in blood the one character that does elicit some sympathy as he finally makes his way to Hugo’s.

Writer/director Savvas D Michael throws in hints to Natural Born Killers with the pairing of Oscar and Ella, as well as Alejandro Jodorowsky in particular El Topo with the episodic nature, its western allusions, bizarre characters that they and we encounter. Though this lacks any of the gravitas and true flair that those films display

The colour palette is gauche with the soundtrack drifting all over the place never stopping and while it doesn’t add too much to the visuals is good if a little jarring at times. There’s an archness at play here with this being wilfully weird, and manipulative though heavy handed.

The acting is big, exaggerated and very stagey with swearing to match from people who clearly aren’t that comfortable doing it. It sticks out not as shocking just inept in its execution. In amongst all this though is the pathetic Riley riddled with Red Devil and desperate for some sort of relief be it from the drug or something else. Through him you can see the horrors of addiction and the power of religion. There’s possibly a satire on organised religions and the accompanying zealots being as addicted as those who are on drugs but in the end it all starts to become wearisome, and dull.

Red Rage is out on DVD and digital download now