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Movie reviews: 'Red Rover' a quirky story that could have been overcome by its whimsy

Richard Crouse Contributor

@richardcrouse Contact

Damon (Kristian Bruun) and Phoebe (Cara Gee) are seen in a scene from the film "Red Rover." (Red Rover)

RED ROVER: 3 STARS

"Red Rover" is a coming-of-middle-age story.

"Orphan Black's" Kristian Bruun is Damon, a man cut adrift from most of the things that kept him grounded. He's an unemployed geologist whose former business partner always refers to his achievements in the past tense. "Once, you were an asset to the company." He shares a home with his ex-wife (Meghan Heffern) and her new, obnoxious boyfriend who treats Damon like a lodger, not the actual owner of the house.

The only thing missing are track marks on his back from everyone walking all over him.

His life is stuck in low gear until he meets Phoebe (Cara Gee), an indie musician and promoter of a new reality show. Called "Red Rover," it's part science experiment, part entertainment, backed by a billionaire who wants to send a manned capsule to Mars. For Damon, it seems like the perfect escape, a way to leave his Earthbound problems behind.

"Red Rover" is a portrait of a no-hoper with limited prospects, gilded with a shiny rom-com veneer. It's Bruun's central performance that keeps the story from becoming too maudlin or too farfetched. Even as he dreams of going to Mars, Bruun keeps Damon terrestrial. In his hands, Damon's aspirations don't feel like a pipe dream but more like a map for a way out of a directionless life.

As he slowly regains his mojo it becomes clear that whether his endgame is a new home on Mars or a new life in a new town with a new person, it's all the same. Bruun humanizes and makes you root for a character who could have been easy to dismiss.

"Red Rover" is a quirky story that could have been overcome by its whimsy, but is rescued by actors who make their characters more than caricatures of a man in mid-life crisis or the Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

CASTLE IN THE GROUND: 3 ½ STARS

In "Castle in the Ground," a new opioid drama now on VOD, the more Ana (Imogen Poots) says, "Everything is going to be OK," the more it becomes apparent that it's not.

Set in Sudbury, Ontario, circa 2012, the film stars Alex Wolff as Henry, a young man nursing his mother (Neve Campbell) through the final stages of Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Across the hall is neighbour Ana, a young woman struggling to pull herself out of the pit of addiction. When Henry's mother dies, Ana and the grieving son are drawn together, but this isn't a mother and son sickness of the week story or a Bukowskian tale of rough romance. It's a co-dependency thriller set against a backdrop of Ana's plan to rip off her dealer Polo Boy (Keir Gilchrist). Henry is drawn into the scheme and a life of opioid addiction.

"Castle in the Ground" is a carefully crafted character study of a naive — or willfully ignorant — man and a Machiavellian addict. Wolff, who impressed in Ari Aster's "Heredity," holds the screen during director Joey Klein's long, unhurried scenes. He brings the hurt of a heartbroken guy, now looking for a connection, even if it isn't in his best interest. But it is Poots who impresses. Her take on Ana is vividly painted as she plays a cat-and-mouse game with Henry in order to get what she wants. As the situation spirals, her chirpy "everything is going to be OK" assurances become more ominous.

This is a depressing film, unburdened by light at the end of the tunnel. Dark, visually and thematically, it's a movie about internal conflict, pain, depression and indulgence that spares none of its characters. Everyone, no matter how sympathetic, are complicit in the lead-up to the film's fiery climax.

"Castle in the Ground" is an up-close-and-personal look at a very large issue. It offers no solutions or searing insight as to how the opioid problem spun so far out of control. Instead, it is simply a well-made and well-acted look at life in a time of personal crisis.

PORNO: 2 STARS

Despite its racy name and some male-gaze "Porky's" style nudity, "Porno," Keola Racela's horror-comedy out this week on VOD, doesn't belong on Porn Hub.

Set in 1992, "Porno" mostly takes place inside a small-town theatre staffed by four teenagers who begin their shift with a prayer circle. On a night off they're offered the chance to screen one of the theatre's two wholesome offerings, "Encino Man" or "A League of Their Own" after hours. Instead of watching Pauly Shore or Tom Hanks they end up chasing a disheveled old man (Peter Reznikoff), who appears to have broken in, around the place. He leads them to a hole in the wall and a treasure trove of mysterious old film reels. One of them, bound in a leather case and stamped with a peculiar symbol, tempts them. Minutes after threading it into the projector the screen is filled with images unlike anything they've ever seen before. Ritualistic violence, nudity, a boatload of blood. "Is this what all pornography is like?" they wonder.

They find out that the movie they watched wasn't pornography but some psychedelic relic that releases the onscreen succubus (Katelyn Pearce) into the real world. Each must deal with their own hidden desires as she attempts to steal their souls, and occasionally make their testicles explode.

Of course, "Porno" isn't really about a buxom succubus who tempts the teens. The script, by Laurence Vannicelli and Matt Black, is a riff on repression, obedience and self-hate wrapped around a retro teen movie. That means lots of gross out humour, (see the above-mentioned exploded testicles), PG nudity and, in this case, some old-school demonic imagery that would give Kenneth Anger a run for his money. The moralizing is kept to a minimum, used as a framing device for the action and, I suppose, to generate some depth for the characters, who are mostly ripped from the pages of Teen Exploitation Movie 101 Handbook. For every character like projectionist Heavy Metal Jeff (Robbie Tann), who shakes up the playbook a bit as a straight edge despite his rock ‘n roll nickname there's another one, like hunky jock Ricky (Glenn Stott) who seems to have wandered in from any number of 90s teen movies.

"Porno" begins strong and shows some serious promise in the staging and editing of the various horror-related sequences but succumbs to its worst puerile instincts in scene after scene.

THEY CALL ME DR. MIAMI: 3 STARS

Like Dr. Pimple Popper and Dr. Oz, Dr. Michael Salzhauer a.k.a. Dr. Miami, is just as skilled at self-promotion as he is with his surgical tools. The self-proclaimed "most famous plastic surgeon in America" pioneered the online "reality" operating theatre, opening up his practice to anyone with a Snapchat account.

A new documentary, "They Call Me Dr. Miami," on VOD as part of Hot Docs at Home on CBC, details the unusual story of a surgeon who balances internet notoriety with his own deeply held Jewish Orthodox values.

Director Jean-Simon Chartier dives deep into a profession that has seen a 250 per cent rise in butt lift procedures since 2015. At the epicentre of this is the title subject, an outrageous plastic surgeon with a two year wait list. His business is built on equal parts skill and spectacle. To hammer home the point the movie opens and closes with the quote, "In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles," from Guy Debord's "Society of the Spectacle."

In the brisk eighty-seven-minute running time Chartier does not spare the spectacle. There's graphic real-life surgery, behind-the-scenes footage of the making of rap videos and even a "Game of Thrones" themed commercial shoot.

Depending on your point of view Dr. Miami is either a crass opportunist or the epitome of a capitalist society where making money by any means necessary is legit. Through a series of talking head interviews with clients and colleagues, a portrait emerges of a complex man whose career choices don't exactly square with the person he is at home. Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he is two sides of one coin and Chartier's exploration of that is the thing that makes "They Call Me Dr. Miami" more than an infomercial for Salzhauer's business.

His larger-than-life online presence stands in stark contrast to the suburban father he is on the weekends — an Orthodox Jewish man who observes the Sabbath with his wife of twenty years and their five children.

We meet his wife and daughter who disapprove of his public persona, who speak about the denigration that comes along with an ego-driven, aggressive online life. It's in these at-home sequences that he becomes more man than meme.

"They Call Me Dr. Miami" explores the ethical dilemmas that arise from Salzhauer's unorthodox approach to his practice but doesn't condemn or condone his overall business. There's talk of plastic surgery's ability to fix bodies and minds, and positive testimonials from his clients, but the film's lasting impression isn't one of a freshly lifted butt or redesigned chest, it's of the balancing act between the doctor's faith and the image he presents to the world

LES MISERABLES: 4 STARS

In an age of remakes and reboots comes an unexpected one, a radicle updating of "Les Miserables," Victor Hugo's classic novel of broken dreams and sacrifice. Set in modern day France, the new film "Les Miserables," now on VOD, eschews the grandeur of the Broadway musical of the same name to tell the gritty story of the downtrodden and three members of an anti-crime brigade.

Taking place over the course of two, event-filled days, the action begins when the even-tempered rookie Stephane (Damien Bonnard) joins the suburban Montfermeil Anti-Crime Squad. Teamed with Gwada (Djebril Zonga) and Chris (Alexis Manenti, who also co-wrote the script), hair tempered alpha male nicknamed Pink Pig patrol the crime ridden area of Les Bosquets. When one of the local kids, Issa (Issa Perica), steals a lion cub from a circus it sets into motion a series of events that brings to a boil the already simmering relationship between the police and the townsfolk.

Gritty and naturalistic, "Les Miserables" occasionally uses a hammer where a softer touch would suffice but the picture it paints of social unrest is vivid and unforgettable. The slow build to the explosive ending effectively echoes the tradition of revolution popular in French history and storytelling.

Introducing talented non-actors into the mix gives the movie a realistic, cinema-verite feel to the tale of injustice and anger. It's often not an easy watch but the revolt against oppression is an important and timely topic.

"Les Miserables" is a stirring debut for director Ladj Ly, one that is both thought provoking and an indictment of failed social policy.

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RED ROVER – Review

Review by Stephen Tronicek

RED ROVER premieres On Demand May 12 from Indiecan Entertainment.

Red Rover is not a film about traveling to Mars. Instead, it is a film about a man named Damon (Kristian Bruun) who is living in the basement of his ex-girlfriend. Eventually, he meets Phoebe (Cara Gee), a fantasy woman, who pushes him out of his everyday routine by proposing he join the Mars project. 

Red Rover didn’t need to be about traveling to Mars.  When you’re working within the framework of the independent film, the budget simply doesn’t exist to create a larger film with a lot of VFX work. Unfortunately, Red Rover is just a horribly derivative version of a “man getting back his mojo” movie. 

The above-average aspects of the piece do show at least a little inventiveness, though. Shane Belcourt directs the film well and the actors are all in for the haphazard storyline. Brunn turns in a largely thankless performance that does its best to reconcile some of the cringy dialogue. On top of that, the concept of a major Mars mission being a transitional phase for somebody’s life isn’t a bad idea. The same goes for a pretty good set up and pay off of Damon’s metal detector search on the beach each day. At the moments when Damon chooses to change, the film actually comes alive. The problem is that often there’s not a choice to what Damon is doing. 

Red Rover often robs Damon of his own agency, while not giving Phoebe any valuable agency of her own. Phoebe exists within the narrative simply to change Damon. Any type of characterization given to her doesn’t rise above the typically adolescent fantasy of the girl who simply has only your interests in mind…and sings cute indie music, It’s a truly unfortunate trope that was long ago pushed to the point of parody. As mentioned above, the dialogue often reads as the cringey fantasy of someone hoping for Phoebe to show up, not something Phoebe would actually say. 

While not a complete loss, Red Rover is just another high concept romantic drama in a sea that can’t manage to transcend the common problem of character agency. There are some moments of interesting change, but they are not profound. They don’t ring true. They are as far away as Mars. 

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Directed by Shane Belcourt

We all want someone to call us over.

After feeling he has nothing left to live for on earth, a lonely geologist tries to qualify for a one-way mission to Mars with the help of an offbeat musician who is just as lost as he is.

Kristian Bruun Cara Gee Meghan Heffern Anna Hopkins Morgan David Jones Joshua Peace Sugith Varughese Laura Wilson

Director Director

Shane Belcourt

Producers Producers

Shane Belcourt Duane Murray Michelle St. John Karimah Zakia Issa

Writers Writers

Shane Belcourt Duane Murray

Cinematography Cinematography

Keesic Douglas Shane Belcourt

Executive Producer Exec. Producer

Mike MacMillan

The Story Attic

Romance Comedy

Releases by Date

30 nov 2018, 19 mar 2019, 20 sep 2021, releases by country.

• Theatrical Whistler Film Festival
• Theatrical Canadian Film Fest

95 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by MichaelEternity ★★★ 4

Kind of a stretch to watch this for my ongoing pursuit of any and all indie sci-fi flicks, since it's mostly a romantic drama that just happens to involve a worldwide application process to join the first one-way mission to Mars (as a dramatic device for character growth), but who makes the rules around here anyway. Just know if you're curious about this movie ahead of seeing it, that it doesn't take place in space like that poster strongly indicates. Entirely on earth, in offices, homes, neighborhoods and beaches, with the leanest budget a movie can get away with. Also it's Canadian. No shade, just sayin'!

Quick summary: an average indecisive loser still living in his ex-girlfriend's basement, getting shat…

Review by Tim McClelland ★★★★

I wasn't expecting much, then I ended up loving it. It's a fantastic film.

Review by Sean Kelly ★★★ 1

While we have reached the point where a manned mission to Mars seems more and more likely, I do have to admit that Red Rover‘s premise involving a competition to find participants for such a mission still seems quite far fetched. However, that sci-fi aspect of the plot is ultimately a bit of a macguffin for what is essentially the basic romantic comedy narrative. In fact, I feel tempted to describe the character of Phoebe as a “manic pixie space girl,” based on the spacesuit she wears for much of the film. Ultimately, Red Rover isn’t a bad film, but it isn’t particularly memorable either.

skonmovies.com/2019/03/canadian-film-fest-2019-red-rover.html

Review by Brandon Williford ★★★★

235th film of 2022.

👩‍🚀👩‍🚀👩‍🚀👩‍🚀 out of 👩‍🚀 👩‍🚀 👩‍🚀 👩‍🚀 👩‍🚀

So for my 200th milestone on films new to me, I was looking to go with something big. Something well known. Something well reviewed and received.

I sat in my chair, all prepared to watch something, and then just decided to go for this Canadian Indie film, starring Kristian Bruun (ORPHAN BLACK, READY OR NOT) and Cara Gee (THE EXPANSE). And I mean true indie: the estimated budget is $50,000 Canadian. I'm so glad I did. I really enjoyed this film.

Simply put it's about a man (Bruun), a geologist, who's trying to find where he's going in life and how he's going to do that, to the…

Review by ligerlillie ★★★

Manic Astronaut Dream Girl

Review by Jacob Gehman

I've been in a space sci-fi mood so thought this might be a fun, adjacent film that hinted close enough to that direction to be satisfying, but far enough away to provide some texture to my space sci-fi mood.

But the problem I'm encountering is, despite an interesting synopsis (a guy trying to go to Mars), the film is falling into the "average man with horrible life gets saved by quirky girl" trap. I feel like I'm more forgiving of Mary Sue characters than most people--hell, I love Garden State and that's a film rife with Mary Sue-isms--but sometimes a Mary Sue feels so fabricated, so written with only the male love interest in mind, that I can't muster any…

Review by Rui Ozpinhead ★★★½

One of the best true indie films (estimated budget of 50k Canadian dollars. that's around 33-34k EUR) I enjoyed discovering in recent memory. And by way of the number of viewers here, a gem waiting to be discovered by many. The story is somewhat predictable in its progression, but it doesn't really matter because the writing, performances, and overall execution are solid. If there's one thing I would change is the ending, but that is just my personal preference because the ending we get also works well. I just think there was a better one in the making 6 minutes before.

The best compliment I can give the film is that I started watching it already a little late at night and instead of falling asleep in the couch as it happens with lesser films, this one perked me up as good films usually do.

Review by George ★★★

So I saw the premise of this and thought that I would give it a try because it was about someone in Toronto wanting to go to Mars. It had a lot of local shots and considering I lived in the Beaches there was a lot familiar scenery. The story and acting and direction was so-so except for one thing: Cara Ge. How utterly delightful is this actress. She picked up a relatively no frills part and completely uplifted it. She was charming and vulnerable and raw and beguiling. If you watch Sally Hawkins act then you know what I'm talking about. I completely cared about her and couildn't wait to see her show up on the screen again.

Review by Trevor Litchfield ★★★★½

Loved this film

Review by ash2000 ★★★

Another sincere effort from a small indie film.

Review by Sean Kelly on Movies ★★★

Review by Brandon Williams ★★½

Really quite good for an ultra microbudget (CA$50k) romcom. My one gripe is the relationship didn't earn its progression. Too much runtime spent solely on Damon and the Mars mission. We learn literally nothing about Phoebe. Makes her come off as a total MPDG. Regardless, I still enjoyed the 95 mins. It is watchable.

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Red rover - movie review.

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[tab title="Movie Review"]

Red rover, red rover, send Damon on over!

In a situation that is fucked up beyond belief, one poor schmuck finally finds his way out of his ex-girlfriend’s basement.  He's going to colonize Mars! Well, maybe.  If this scenario sounds like a wacky, space cadet move, know that - when you consider that the schmuck has nothing really to live for here - it sounds perfectly logical.

With no job and no real prospects of ever escaping the house he bought with Beatrice, his ex-girlfriend (which he now lives in the basement of), Damon ( Kristian Bruun, Orphan Black ) is beyond a broken man. The flyer he's handed one night from an intriguing stranger might have the answer for the escape he's looking for.

Enter writer/director Shane Belcourt ’s Toronto-set comedy Red Rover . This beautifully crafted film is a rom-com that is actually quite profound in its exploration of the human condition - especially when it comes to ideas of love and companionship in the mid-life funk that we sometimes stumble into.  

Adrift and wanting to start over after the break-up from his high school sweetheart, he spends his free time on the beach looking for something lost among the rocks and debris.  It must be something very important.  He’s been doing this, in between the arguments with the yoga-loving, always shirtless, Australian boyfriend, Mark, (whom he hears having sex with Beatrice every night in their upstairs world), for over a year now.

Dedicated, yes, but it’s also kind of pathetic, but that’s the world that this lonely geologist lives in. He kinda hates people right now and he definitely does not want to be around his family.  He’s a carrier pigeon who blocks out the sun. {googleads}

That is until Phoebe ( Cara Gee, The Expanse ) walks right into his stunted world.  Vibrant and smiling, she shakes up Damon’s miserable existence with a spark that ignites a passion within him.  Plus, she’s also wearing a form-fitting space suit (which always helps in getting attention) for most of the movie.  Phoebe is a rare bird.  She’s spunky, delightful, but keeps people at a distance; it’s as if she is protecting herself from something, too.  

Damon learns, through their casual run-ins on the beach that she’s an aspiring musician, but - to pay the bills - she is currently the public face for Red Rover, a company which wants to send people to Mars and televise it.  She tells him to check it out; to go to the website and submit a video for consideration into the program. Be one of the few!  The Brave!

When he considers the shit on Earth that’s here for him, that idea of a one-way ticket to Mars makes a lot of sense.  So, he takes her up on the idea. The problem is that his life is still a mess and to even think of trying to sell himself to complete strangers in this competition makes for a rather miserable video submission.

But there are some heart yearning lessons here.  There is a sequence, late in the movie, which absolutely brought tears to my eyes as every idea this film has been leading to is explored via images of space and planets and then, finally, life here on planet earth.  It is a fabulous montage that left me breathless in its persistence to start fresh instead of just expand on what has already been created. Something, during these Covid-19 times, that we could all benefit from doing.

From writer/director Shane Helcourt , co-writer Duane Murray , and starring Kristian Bruun ( Ready or Not ), Cara Gee ( The Expanse ), Meghan Heffern ( Wynonna Earp ), and Anna Hopkins ( The Expanse ), Red Rover premieres On Demand May 12 from Indiecan Entertainment and October Coast .

Between the earth and the moon….there is so much to love.  Red Rover is something to throw your arms around.

[tab title="Blu-ray Review"]

Blu-ray Details:

Home Video Distributor: Available on Blu-ray Screen Formats: Subtitles : Audio: Discs: Region Encoding:

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[tab title="Film Details"]

MPAA Rating: Unrated. Runtime: 95 mins Director : Shane Belcourt Writer: Shane Belcourt, Duane Murray Cast: Kristian Bruun, Cara Gee, Meghan Heffern Genre : Comedy | Romance Tagline: We all want someone to call us over. Memorable Movie Quote: "Imagine human settlement on the planet Mars." Distributor: Indiecan Entertainment and October Coast Official Site: Release Date: May 12, 2020 DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: No details available. Synopsis : After feeling he has nothing left to live for on earth, a lonely geologist tries to qualify for a one-way mission to Mars with the help of an offbeat musician who is just as lost as he is.

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By Kyle Bain | April 30, 2020

The main character of  Red Rover , Damon (Kristian Bruun), has had a rough go of things lately. His love life is in shambles, he was recently let go from his job, and everything around him is falling apart. As Damon contemplates his role in the world, a stranger named Phoebe (Cara Gee) presents him with a way out of his disappointing life. The titular Red Rover   is an experimental, one-way trip to Mars. He understands the difficulties that will come with his decision to go to space, but the attractive Phoebe proves to be the most significant obstacle of them all. 

“As Damon contemplates his role in the world, a stranger named Phoebe presents him with a way out…”

Red Rover  is quite the far-fetched story. It   tries to convince audiences that moving to Mars is the perfect way to start over and escape the realities of the harsh world in which we live. What is even crazier than the script, is the fact that the ensemble ably convinces viewers of the story’s plausibility. The journey to Mars is not necessarily made out to be realistic, but the idea that Mars is the only place far enough away to escape our realities is made understandable by the wonderful writing talent of Shane Belcourt and Duane Murray.

While it is a potential reality for Damon, it represents much simpler ways of escaping the real world. Damon’s planned journey to Mars represents more than just an escape. It represents the everyday struggles of being human and, even deeper than that, depression. Damon’s ever-growing depression makes life difficult and makes running away seem like the only reasonable choice to make. His situation is one that many people are far too familiar with, and this allows audiences the opportunity to become part of the story. Furthermore, the implausibility of Damon’s mission to Mars ironically captivates viewers and pulls them in and piques their curiosity.

Red Rover (2019)

Directed: Shane Belcourt

Written: Shane Belcourt, Duane Murray

Starring: Kristian Bruun, Cara Gee, Meghan Heffern, Anna Hopkins, Morgan David Jones, etc.

Movie score: 8/10

"…quite the far-fetched story."

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Red Rover Parent Guide

Unlucky in love on earth try mars.

Digital on Demand: With no personal relationships to keep him on earth, lonesome geologist Damon applies for a one-way trip to Mars, hoping to make something of his life away from the Earth. With the help of a quirky local musician, Phoebe, he starts to appreciate more of the little things on his home planet.

Release date May 12, 2020

Run Time: 95 minutes

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The guide to our grades, parent movie review by keith hawkes.

Hapless geologist Damon (Kristian Bruun) has a pretty sad life. Following a nasty breakup, he lives in the basement of the house he and his ex, Beatrice (Meghan Heffern) were leasing - right below her and her new boyfriend Mark (Morgan David Jones). If that weren’t depressing enough, he’s also out of a job. So when Damon sees an ad for a one-way trip to Mars, he pictures an opportunity to start life over. With the help of unusual local musician Phoebe (Cara Gee), Damon starts trying to put together an audition for an escape into space.

This film hasn’t yet been rated by the MPAA, but I can fairly confidently say that if it’s certified, it’s going to be an “R”. There isn’t any explicit sex or violence or drug use, but there are three dozen sexual expletives sprinkled throughout the film which may discourage some viewers and makes the film inappropriate for younger audiences.

Beyond the quality of the cast, what surprised me was how polished the film looks - little indie movies often have a pretty rough finish. Not so here, and I think less likely to be so going forward. The improvements in affordable digital video technology make it much easier to make something that looks like a big studio production with little more than some determination and a supply run to Best Buy. Where that illusion falls apart tends to be with scripts, but Red Rover ’s natural-sounding dialogue and smooth pace mean that, apart from the Canadian setting (a dead giveaway for a smaller production), there is little to indicate that this wasn’t a larger release.

Red Rover plays true to type for a rom-com, and is largely completely predictable, but I don’t think people are watching When Harry Met Sally for the wild twists and turns. It’s not meant to be a thriller, and to an extent, that predictability makes the film somehow comforting. Knowing that there are no huge surprises ahead means you can just relax and zone out a little, although if you zone too far you might miss out on some of the nice little touches.

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Keith hawkes, red rover rating & content info.

Why is Red Rover rated Not Rated? Red Rover is rated Not Rated by the MPAA

Violence: A person steps on an earring. Two people are involved in a fistfight, with one receiving a bloody nose. Sexual Content: A couple is briefly shown having sex in front of a window with no graphic nudity. They can be heard having sex in several other scenes. A couple are shown kissing and undressing one another from the shoulders up. A woman is briefly seen in her underwear while changing. Profanity: There are 36 uses of extreme profanity and 8 uses of scatological cursing. There are also occasional terms of deity. Alcohol / Drug Use: An individual is briefly shown drinking and appears intoxicated.

Page last updated August 31, 2020

Red Rover Parents' Guide

Would you ever be interested in going to another planet? What if that meant you couldn’t ever come home again? What do you think motivates people to sign up for one way tickets to space?

The most recent home video release of Red Rover movie is May 5, 2020. Here are some details…

Related home video titles:.

Another Canadian-made space story is Astronaut . This charming little film stars Richard Dreyfuss as a retired engineer who enters an online lottery to go into space.

Matt Damon stars as an astronaut accidentally abandoned on Mars in The Martian .

For those looking for that fun Canadian filmmaking vibe, Disappearance at Clifton Hill focuses on a strange disappearance, 25 years after the fact.

Another romantic comedy which just released is The Half of It , about the complicated relationship between a lovesick jock, the nerd he hires to write his love letters, and the object of both of their affections. A Netflix production, it is only available on that platform.

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John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Walter Brennan in "Red River."

When Peter Bogdanovich needed a movie to play as the final feature in the doomed small-town theater in “ The Last Picture Show ,” he chose Howard Hawks’ “Red River” (1948). He selected the scene where John Wayne tells Montgomery Clift , “Take ’em to Missouri, Matt!” And then there is Hawks’ famous montage of weathered cowboy faces in closeup and exaltation, as they cry “Hee-yaw!” and wave their hats in the air.

The moment is as quintessentially Western as any ever filmed, capturing the exhilaration of being on a horse under the big sky with a job to do and a paycheck at the other end. And “Red River” is one of the greatest of all Westerns when it stays with its central story about an older man and a younger one, and the first cattle drive down the Chisholm Trail. It is only in its few scenes involving women that it goes wrong.

The film’s hero and villain is Tom Dunson (Wayne), who heads West with a wagon train in 1851 and then peels off for Texas to start a cattle ranch. He takes along only his wagon driver, Groot Nadine ( Walter Brennan ). Dunson’s sweetheart, Fen ( Coleen Gray ), wants to join them, but he rejects her almost absentmindedly, promising to send for her later. Later, from miles away, Tom and Groot see smoke rising: Indians have destroyed the wagon train. Groot, a grizzled codger, fulminates about how Indians “always want to be burning up good wagons,” and Tom observes that it would take them too long to go back and try to help. Their manner is surprisingly distant, considering that Dunson has just lost the woman he loved.

Soon after, the men encounter a boy who survived the Indian attack. This is Matt Garth, who is adopted by Dunson and brought up as the eventual heir to his ranch. Played as an adult by Montgomery Clift (his first screen role), Matt goes away to school, but returns in 1866 just as Dunson is preparing an epic drive to take 9,000 head of cattle north to Missouri.

I mentioned that Dunson is both hero and villain. It’s a sign of the movie’s complexity that John Wayne, often typecast, is given a tortured, conflicted character to play. He starts with “a boy with a cow and a man with a bull,” and builds up a great herd. But then he faces ruin; he must drive the cattle north or go bankrupt.

He’s a stubborn man; all through the movie people tell him he’s wrong, and usually they’re right. They’re especially right in wanting to take the cattle to Abilene, which is closer and reportedly has a railroad line, instead of on the longer trek to Missouri. As the cattle drive grows grueling, Dunson grows irascible, and finally whiskey and lack of sleep drive him a little mad; there are attempted mutinies before Matt finally rebels and takes the cattle to Abilene.

The critic Tim Dirks has pointed out the parallels between their conflict and the standoff between Capt. Bligh and Fletcher Christian in “Mutiny on the Bounty.” And indeed, the Borden Chase screenplay makes much of the older man’s pride and the younger one’s need to prove himself.

Also established, but never really developed, is a rivalry between young Matt and a tough cowboy named Cherry Valance ( John Ireland ), who signs up for the cattle drive and becomes Matt’s rival. There’s gonna be trouble between those two, old Groot predicts, but the film never delivers, leaving them stranded in the middle of a peculiar ambivalence that drew the attention of “The Celluloid Closet,” a documentary about hidden homosexuality in the movies. (“You know,” Cherry says, handling Matt’s gun, “there are only two things more beautiful than a good gun: a Swiss watch or a woman from anywhere. You ever had a Swiss watch?”)

The shifting emotional attachments are tracked by a silver bracelet, which Dunson gives to Fen before leaving her. It later turns up on the wrist of an Indian he kills, and Dunson then gives it to Matt, who later gives it to Tess Millay (Joanne Dru), a woman he rescues and falls in love with. The three scenes with Tess are the movie’s low points, in part because of her prattle (listen to how she chats distractingly with Matt during an Indian attack), in part because she is all too obviously the deus ex machina the plot needs to avoid an unhappy ending. The final scene is the weakest in the film, and Borden Chase reportedly hated it, with good reason: Two men act out a fierce psychological rivalry for two hours, only to cave in instantly to a female’s glib tongue-lashing.

What we remember with “Red River” is not, however, the silly ending, but the setup and the majestic central portions. The tragic rivalry is so well established that somehow it keeps its weight and dignity in our memories, even though the ending undercuts it.

Just as memorable are the scenes of the cattle drive itself, as a handful of men control a herd so large it takes all night to ford a river. Russell Harlan’s cinematography finds classical compositions in the drive, arrangements of men, sky and trees, and then in the famous stampede scene he shows a river of cattle flowing down a hill. It is an outdoor movie (we never go inside the ranch house Dunson must have built), and when young Matt steps inside the cattle buyer’s office in Abilene, he ducks, observing how long it’s been since he was under a roof.

Hawks is wonderful at setting moods. Notice the ominous atmosphere he brews on the night of the stampede–the silence, the restlessness of the cattle, the lowered voices. Notice Matt’s nervousness during a night of thick fog, when every shadow may be Tom, come to kill him. And the tension earlier, when Dunson holds a kangaroo court.

And watch the subtle way Hawks modulates Tom Dunson’s gradual collapse. John Wayne is tall and steady at the beginning of the picture, but by the end his hair is gray and lank, and his eyes are haunted; the transition is so gradual we might not even notice he wears a white hat at the outset but a black one at the end. Wayne is sometimes considered more of a natural force than an actor, but here his understated acting is right on the money; the critic Joseph McBride says John Ford , who had directed Wayne many times, saw “Red River” and told Hawks, “I never knew the big son of a bitch could act.”

Between Wayne and Clift there is a clear tension, not only between an older man and a younger one, but between an actor who started in 1929 and another who represented the leading edge of the Method. It’s almost as if Wayne, who could go over a flamboyant actor, was trying to go under a quiet one: He meets the challenge, and matches it.

The theme of “Red River” is from classical tragedy: the need of the son to slay the father, literally or symbolically, in order to clear the way for his own ascendancy. And the father’s desire to gain immortality through a child (the one moment with a woman that does work is when Dunson asks Tess to bear a son for him). The majesty of the cattle drive, and all of its expert details about “taking the point” and keeping the cowhands fed and happy, is atmosphere surrounding these themes.

Underlying everything else is an attitude that must have been invisible to the filmmakers at the time: the unstated assumption that it is the white man’s right to take what he wants. Dunson shoots a Mexican who comes to tell him “Don Diego” owns the land. Told the land had been granted to Diego by the king of Spain, Dunson says, “You mean he took it away from whoever was here before–Indians, maybe. Well, I’m takin’ it away from him.” In throwaway dialogue, we learn of seven more men Dunson has killed for his ranch, and there’s a grimly humorous motif as he shoots people and then “reads over ’em” from the Bible.

Dunson is a law of his own, until Matt stops a hanging and ends his reign. If all Westerns are about the inevitable encroachment of civilization, this is one where it seems like a pretty good idea.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

• John Wayne as Tom Dunson
• Noah Beery Jr. as Buster McGee
• Coleen Gray as Fen
• Montgomery Clift as Matt Garth
• John Ireland as Cherry Valance
• Walter Brennan as Nadine
• Joanne Dru Groot as Tess Millay

Screenplay by

• Borden Chase
• Charles Schnee

Directed by

• Howard Hawks

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Two siblings played by William Baldwin and Jodi Lyn O'Keefe travel to their families old, ancestral estate upon the death of their father. They soon find out the hard way about their familie... Read all Two siblings played by William Baldwin and Jodi Lyn O'Keefe travel to their families old, ancestral estate upon the death of their father. They soon find out the hard way about their families ancient secret of witchcraft and the occult. Two siblings played by William Baldwin and Jodi Lyn O'Keefe travel to their families old, ancestral estate upon the death of their father. They soon find out the hard way about their families ancient secret of witchcraft and the occult.

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• disdressed12
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• $5,000,000 (estimated)

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