RED SANDS

My original review of this film was going to be way more scathing. After my first watch I knew there had to be more to this film so I decided to take a look at the DVD extras. I now know of extenuating circumstances that caused the film to subpar. A film that could have been a 5 out of 5 is now a 2 ½ out of 5. With that said on to my review.

I am a huge fan of Military Movies. I love men on a mission world war II movies like the Dirty Dozen and The Guns of the Navarone. I love Vietnam movies like Platoon and Full Metal Jacket. I’ve even enjoyed films about our recent military ventures like Jarhead and Black Hawk down. I especially love military horror movies. In fact my favorite horror film of last year was Outpost, a military horror film from the UK staring Ray “The Punisher” Stevenson. I couldn’t help but throw Red Sands on my Netflix queue. It happened to arrive during the week The United States handed Iraqi national security back to the Iraqi military. That same week Barrack Obama launched the first military campaign of his presidency in an attempt to do what the Soviets could not, take control of Afghanistan. You may have missed these big news stories because Michael Jackson died. So you should go to CNN.com and read about them. These two major events provided me with the perfect mindset to pop in Alex Turner’s Red Sands.

Red Sands is set in Afghanistan in 2002. Its about a group of Army guys sent to a stone house out in the desert to observe a road that is believed to be used by the Taliban. On their way to the house they accidentally unleash a Djinn or genie which makes them relive horrible things they did in their lives and then starts killing them off usually by pitting them against each other. If you didn’t know that was the plot of the film going in, there is a title card that explains it before the movie starts. In case you miss that title card the wiener translator for the army guys explains it again with a piece of expositionary dialogue. During my first viewing this seemed like Djinn explanation over kill. While listening to the commentary track writer Simon Barrett explains that it was studio who wanted to add the title card because they felt the audience would have been unclear as to what the villain in the film was. So the studio is half to blame. Before the wiener translator rattles off what a Djinn is, one of the army guys says, “he went to college and shit”. They don’t teach Djinn at college unless he learned about Djinn while playing D&D in college. I feel the translator character would have worked much better as an Afghan. Had the character been local it would have made more sense that he had some knowledge of local mythology. During the commentary Barrett says he saw the translator character as someone who had taken a 6 hour class in the Dari. I don’t think they would teach people about Djinn in a six hour army language class.

Director Alex Turner mentions that he is unhappy with many of the computer generated effects in the movie. I can understand why. His least favorite is one where the CG Djinn scurries off into the night and sandy wind. Yes, this shot looks bad, but it didn’t take me out of the movie. As a viewer I don’t hold low budget direct to DVD films to the same standard that I do big budget theatrical releases. The boring characters were more than enough to take me out of the movie. Every character in this film is a military movie stereotype. There is the hero who is just following orders but will always try to do the right thing. There is a wiener translator, an Italian guy from New York. (He is a nice throw back to the World War II movies where there would always be an Italian guy from Brooklyn named Brooklyn.) Then there was a southern Redneck, which is needed in every army picture, a ghetto black guy, and the soldiers are lead by a black guy who is channeling Jamie Fox’s character from Jarhead. It is totally possible that all the characters are supposed to be generic but I have seen them all before. These characters bored me. The reason why I like Outpost so much is because I hadn’t seen all the characters before. The black guy in Outpost isn’t ghetto black. He is from Africa and had been fighting wars since he was 13. There are people like that from Africa; American audiences just don’t get to see them in every movie. There was a Southern guy in Outpost who wasn’t a racist idiot. He actually was smart and had some cool lines of dialogue.

All things considered there are some cool things in this film. I enjoy all the flash back dream sequence moments where the soldiers are reliving the bad things they did. There is a friendly fire incident that the translator was involved in that has some cool gore and a cameo by Adam Gierasch, who is a great director. I like all the scenes with the Djinn who is disguising itself in the Afghan girl that shows up in a sandstorm during the night. There is one scene where she appears to be seducing the redneck character. Later in the film the redneck rapes the girl. The ambiguity of weather the girl seduced him or if he just let urge get out of control is definitely one of the story’s high points. My favorite part of the film is when the shit finally hits the fan and Djinn has turned all the soldiers against each other. Our hero must now engage in a deadly game of cat and mouse if he is going to survive. This is great because it takes place at night and the wind is whipping all this sand around. It was a great way to set the climax of the film. I was really into the film toward the end.

All and all I am glad I gave Red Sands a chance and a second chance on top of that. It is definitely worth checking out if haven’t seen a lot of military cinema. If you haven’t the characters will be exciting and fresh to you. If you have seen a lot of military films, knowing that you’ve seen all the characters already may help your enjoyment of the film. My final piece of advice is definitely watch Red Sands before you watch Outpost. - by resident BAD KID John Torrani