Review of Red White & Blue (2010) by Donald P — 17 Sep 2011

I wouldn't blame you if you made your excuses and left after 75 minutes, and it wouldn't surprise me if some accused it not so much of jumping the shark as bounding over SeaWorld, leaving a noxious trail of excrement in every pool.

What kept me watching - grimly compelled, I think I ought to qualify - is that unlike Rumley's pokily eccentric predecessors, this is a properly widescreen experience, and thus a step forward of some form, however wrong-footing.

DoP Milton Kam brings back vibrant frescoes of Texan mainstreets; it's edited with exceptional economy; and acted with total commitment by performers unafraid to look spotty or terrified, to have their faces creased or flecked with vomit.

It is in such passages that you realise Rumley will probably never be a populist (if this is his idea of torture porn, it's altogether arch), but collectively they make for a jolting, unpredictable experience, one that establishes a chain of misery in which one abuse begets another, generally more malicious one.

Those who survive it will be sure to know the stress in the title falls firmly on the final syllable.