Movie Review: Red Flag (2012)
From the very first moments of Red Flag, it screams Indie film. This isn’t a bad thing, but you know what you are in for.
After a recent break up, pretentious filmmaker Alex (Alex Karpovsky) takes his independent film on tour. Hoping to escape the pain of his breakup, he invites a friend with him, Henry (Onur Tukel), and after meeting a big fan cum stalker, the ridiculously named River (Jennifer Prediger), Alex’s world takes a number of twists and turn.
Karpovsky has a great handle on dialogue as a writer, a lot of Red Flag is talking, and he gets a lot of it right with it being quite funny. However, I felt that Red Flag would have worked perfectly as a TV show, it has the same feel as a show like Curb Your Enthusiasm, and the film didn’t quite work because of this.
The acting is very deadpan, which compliments the writing, no one tries to over act or be overly funny and every character is grounded in a kind of reality. Whilst the entire cast of characters in this film are the kind of people you’d meet in hell, you end up with a little soft spot for them. Alex is just the kind of arty type who thinks the normal rules don’t apply to him, only to be shocked and outraged when he gets pulled up on his behaviour. It is this behaviour trait that leads to most of the film’s comedy, as cringe inducing as it is. Acting like a total a-hole to friends, girlfriends and complete strangers seems to be natural to Alex. This is despite his clear lack of any real friends, giving the impression that he either hasn’t learnt that this is why he has no real friends or that he just doesn’t care. Henry and River are pretty much cut from the same cloth as Alex, with the ability to completely cut each other down, but it is delivered in such a way that the thinly veiled insults are instantly dismissed and replaced by more barbs.
Karpovsky’s direction is understated and like the rest of the film, it is grounded in the surroundings of the scene. He lets the action happen and doesn’t force it. It is not needed either, like most indie films, it relies on the dialogue as opposed to the action, although Karpovsky throws in one or two superfluous sight gags.
Whilst Red Flag does take some time to get going and a little bit of time to get accustomed to its style, the film does get funnier as it goes along. It has been described as tragi-comedy and I would agree, but only in a very pretentious first world manner. Worth a look, if only to reaffirm just how normal you and your friends are…or aren’t.