A suspenseful tale of moral rectitude in a twisted world, "Red" slowly snakes around you until you're fully gripped. Brian Cox plays Avery Ludlow, a small-town general-store owner whose dog is shot by a reckless teenager (Noel Fisher). When the teenager's father (Tom Sizemore), a frighteningly immoral local magnate, refuses to discipline the boy, Ludlow seeks justice himself.

The message is that someone has to pay -- the indulgent sins of the MySpace generation cannot slide -- or anarchy will result. Ludlow knows this firsthand from his own son's tragedy, over which he continually elides until finally spilling it in a clumsily expository monologue.

It is a message we are willing to swallow, if only for Ludlow's spine of steel. His slow, drawling annunciations, granite chin and unblinking stares leave no doubt as to the righteousness of his cause. That he ultimately expresses doubt over the course of his retribution strikes us, in the film's final minutes, as all the more powerful for its lateness.

A stylistic quibble: Do we really need all the scene-fades to pure red, in addition to the boy's red car and the red paint job Ludlow gives his kids' old swing set? In fact, "Red" doesn't need the stock swing set at all. Its earnest, always incomplete quest haunts us in ways stock imagery cannot.

-- Gabe Oppenheim (Aug. 8, 2008)

Contains a brief but strong sex scene.