ClassyWas Excellent, smart action film.

Griff Lees Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Jerrie It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Python Hyena Red Road (2006): Dir: Andrea Arnold / Cast: Katie Dickie, Tony Curran, Martin Compston, Nathalie Press, Paul Higgins: Intriguing drama thriller about occurrence as Katie Dickie oversees activity on Red Road through surveillance cameras. One particular guy named Clyde catches her attention when she realizes that he was in jail and now out free. This leads her to stalking and eventually becoming involved in his world. Director Andrea Arnold has fun with the surveillance theme but it contains very little music. That can strike against the film in terms of presenting mood. Arnold treats the material as a sort of movie within a movie as Dickie becomes engrossed within a lifestyle she only observes from the outskirts. Why she is stalking this individual is not quite clear, nor are we given much to go on in terms of her fascination. Dickie does well as this obsessed woman who leaves her comfort zone as a surveillance voyeur on the outskirts of paranoia. Tony Curran plays Clyde who is known for his relations with women and lives with another bickering young couple in his apartment. He is the object of her obsession but his lifestyle is hardly pure. There are two colourful supporting roles played by Martin Compston and Nathalie Press. While the film clearly could have been better, it is purely surveillance as we watch and wait for answers. Score: 8 / 10

blanche-2 A film that takes one down a couple of unexpected paths, "Red Road" (2006) stars Kate Dickie as Jackie, a very thin, tired-looking and sad woman who works for the police as a CCTV operator in Glasgow. She watches footage from the various security cameras around her section and reports suspicious behavior, crimes in progress, etc. throughout a particularly gritty area of the city. When Jackie receives an invitation for her sister-in-law's wedding, she attends. It's evident her father-in-law is upset with her; we get the idea that Jackie's husband is dead and that in some way, she has kept the family from getting closure.One day while on the job, to her surprise, Jackie sees a familiar face. She finds out that the man she saw had an early prison release. She begins to stalk him. He doesn't seem to know her, but when she shows up at a party in his apartment, she looks familiar to him. Eventually they have sex - one of the most graphic sex scenes I've ever seen -- and gradually the real story unfolds.You won't know what this film is about for a long time, but you'll keep busy guessing. In that way, the pace is slow-moving but keeps your attention.The acting is not only excellent but very natural from Kate Dickie, who has a real workhorse role, and Tim Curran as Clyde, the recently released prisoner.The idea that we are watched all the time without knowing it is unnerving, and it's fascinating to see how Jackie uses her job and the surveillance to get some closure in her own life. Very satisfying if raw film.

Rockwell_Cronenberg With Red Road, Andrea Arnold has followed in the footsteps of such masterpieces as The Conversation and Blow Out with her exploration of characters who live in a world of voyeurism. She doesn't quite reach the heights of those two films and as her narrative becomes more about the characters themselves it starts to become slightly less interesting, but the film still managed to make quite the impression on me. Her and the phenomenal Kate Dickie's study of this fragile, internally destroyed woman was very impressive and remarkably understated in their portrayal of her inner demons.I like that Arnold doesn't give us any answers right away and we're left in a state of mystery, having to trust that she'll bring things around and unveil the truth at some point. It was a strategy that definitely hooked me in and had me constantly guessing, but I found it to become less compelling the more the answers were revealed. Dickie's performance is heartbreaking and once again Arnold has created a fierce and determined female lead, who is set in her goals and won't let anyone stand in her way; I love seeing such a strong and layered female character.As much as I loved the character though, I have to admit that the most compelling moments in the film were those quiet ones where we just watched her watch the city. Arnold gave an excellent look into the world of someone whose job is to watch; as ours is during any film. I also have to give mention to the main sex scene, which is just...explosive, to say the least. As she did with her next film Fish Tank, Arnold has done something remarkably unique in film when it comes to sex and created a scene that is so many things at once; it's strangely erotic, majorly important for the characters and actually moves the plot forward. In a world with gratuitous nudity and sex for the sake of sex, Arnold has created two sex scenes in the last five years that break the mold and blew me away.

plectrum-1 It's one of those films that bombard you with vulgarity and never show any human relationships in a positive light. Most of the characters are damaged people and none of their activities are wholesome. The setting is as bleak as they can make it, although at least a fair bit of skill has gone into achieving this. It's misery-on-tap for those who need their filmic fix of purgatory. The CCTV angle of the plot is not developed very far, unfortunately. Instead we get to see the protagonist continue her surveillance work 'in the field' as she stalks a mysterious ex-con. While this generates a fair bit of tension, not a whole lot happens, and some of this stuff that does happen, you'll want to erase from your mind afterwards.The actors do well to carry such unappealing material, and the filming itself is memorable. However, the payoff at the end is simply not worth waiting for. Do yourself a favour and watch something more cheerful.