RIP Alan Rickman

The world of theatre, television and film lost one of its most respected figures today. Actor Alan Rickman has passed away from cancer at the age of 69, the same age of David Bowie who passed away on Sunday.

Alan Rickman and Juliet Stevenson in Truly, Madly, Deeply (1991)

Rickman began his career in the early 1970s in theatre, initially behind the scenes but then establishing a good reputation as a performer. He moved into television in the early 1980s, playing Obadiah Slope in The Barchester Chronicles, based on Anthony Trollope's novels. Rickman's first big acting breakthrough came in Christopher Hampton's version of Les Liaisons Dangereuses in 1985. He played the male lead, the Vicomte de Valmont, and was nominated for a Tony Award when the production moved to Broadway in 1987. This move also won the attention of some American casting directors and increased his profile in the UK.

In 1987 TV scriptwriters and producers Rob Grant and Doug Naylor began casting their SF comedy series Red Dwarf and wanted Rickman for the role of Dave Lister (having cast Alfred Molina as Arnold Rimmer, but he had issues with the character and soon departed). Rickman instead chose to investigate roles in Hollywood. Two days after arriving in Los Angeles, he was cast in the role of Hans Gruber in John McTiernan's action movie Die Hard. Released the following year, Rickman's performance was highly praised for bringing greater depth and complexity to the villain than was normal in Hollywood movies. In particular, he'd so impressed McTiernan with his American accent that a subplot where Gruber posed as a hostage to win the trust of hero John McClane (Bruce Willis) was added.

Rickman soon won a supporting role in the movie The January Man, but he achieved a second major career breakthrough in 1991. In the UK he appeared in the TV movie Truly, Madly, Deeply, playing the role of a ghost who is reunited with his former lover (played by Juliet Stevenson). The film - similar to the contemporary American movie Ghost but better - was hugely successful, boosting the careers of both Rickman and Stevenson and the director, Anthony Minghella, who went on to make The English Patient, The Talented Mr. Ripley and Cold Mountain before dying (also before his time) in 2011. Truly, Madly, Deeply was important in showing Rickman playing the role of a sensitive romantic lead, very different to the villainous roles he was becoming known for in Hollywood. The following year he also won plaudits for a supporting role in the film Close My Eyes, which launched the careers of Clive Owen and Saskia Reeves.

However, this image was cemented the same year when he appeared as the Sheriff of Nottingham in the Kevin Costner vehicle Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Rickman won praise for his charismatic, vicious performance and was widely credited with stealing the spotlight away from Kevin Costner (something Costner was allegedly aware of on set).

Rickman continued to appear on stage, in film and (more occasionally) on television. Throughout the 1990s he was constantly the front-runner among SF fans to be the new Doctor Who, should the show ever return from its lengthy hiatus (which eventually lasted from 1990 to 2005, barring a single TV movie). He appeared in Sense and Sensibility (1995), which helped launch the career of Kate Winslet and cemented the reputations of Emma Thompson and Ang Lee. He played the title role in Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny (1996) for HBO, and played the historical character of Eamon de Valera in the Liam Neeson film Michael Collins the same year.

In 1999 Rickman played two of the three roles of greatest interest to SFF fans. He played the Metatron, the Voice of God, in Kevin Smith's religious satire Dogma, portraying him as a libertine who enjoys a drink. The same year he played struggling actor Alexander Dane, better known as Dr. Lazarus, on the Star Trek-spoofing Galaxy Quest. Modelled on Leonard Nimoy's Mr. Spock (with a few original elements thrown in), Rickman's brilliant, hilarious performance was heavily lauded by critics and SF fans alike.

In 2001 Rickman took on the role of Severus Snape in the movie adaptation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling. According to Rowling, Rickman had been her first choice for the role (although the production team had previously offered the role to Tim Roth, who had turned them down). Rickman, a big fan of the novels, soon became friends with Rowling and Rowling revealed some of Snape's biggest secrets to Rickman to help his performance, years before readers would discover them in the novels. His role in Harry Potter won him immense praise and a multitude of new, young fans. The fact that Rickman approached the role with seriousness and respect - penning J.K. Rowling a public fan letter when the films were completed - also went over well with the fans.

Alan Rickman was a versatile and impressive performer, equally comfortable in Shakespeare, urban dramas, historical sagas, science fiction epics and children's fantasy movies. He was guarded, rarely giving interviews and apparently uncomfortable talking about his process and approach to the craft, but he was also good-humoured and respectful. He was certainly one of the leading lights of his generation of actors, and he was taken far, far too soon.

Red State

Three young men find an online dating site where an older woman is propositioning guys for sex. But the advert is a trap, and they find themselves prisoners of a fundamentalist Christian cult who are trying to purge the world of what they see as amorality brought about by sexual permissiveness and tolerance. When their activities draw the attention of law enforcement officials, the stage is set for a violent confrontation.

Kevin Smith is best-known for his string of comedic movies based on pop culture and lowbrow humour: Clerks, Mallrats, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and so on. He is also known for his interest in religion and theological debates, which, combined with humour, have formed the basis for arguably his most interesting movie to date, Dogma. Red State marks Smith's return to examining religion but this time around there are no laughs: the film is a straight-up drama.

After almost twenty years spent making comedies, it's good to see Smith trying out new ideas and breaking new ground for himself as a film-maker. It's such a shame then that Red State is a flat-out mess of a film. Many of the movie's weaknesses are also present in Smith's earlier films, but comedies tend to be much more forgiving of long run-on scenes and structural imperfections. Dramas, especially those with an undercurrent of psychological horror, are much less tolerant of such issues.

This problem can best be summed up by the movie's first half-hour. In the first fifteen minutes we are introduced to our three main characters, about whom we virtually learn nothing at all. Aside from their physical appearances, they are interchangeable and do nothing to attract our sympathy or interest. These scenes also establish the presence of a fundamentalist nutjob community in the town, that the town's sheriff has some personal problems and that these three guys are obsessed with sex. The following fifteen minutes form one, incredibly long and tedious scene in which the film's antagonist rants on against the evils plaguing America. Because of this John Goodman, the movie's biggest name, doesn't even show up until halfway through the picture.

The initial half of the film plays around with the ideas of psychological horror, such as the idea of the three prisoners being tortured or forced to watch the execution of other captives. But Smith doesn't have the patience for this and it isn't long before he ditches the idea in favour of a massive Waco-style shoot-out. Any attempt to engage seriously with the issues raised by the film are thrown out the window the second the shotguns and machine guns start being handed out and it isn't long before we are in the middle of what feels like the longest siege scene in American film history. Because of the failure to set up the action scenes in more depth, they also feel rather trite and manipulative, with Smith borrowing the visual imagery of religious cults and sieges such as Waco without actually engaging with them in any substantive way.

The movie does shine a few times: Goodman is great as normal and gets the best characterisation in the movie. Michael Parks is also excellent as the antagonist preacher leading the cult, even selling some of the worst-written scenes and dialogue in the movie. Kerry Bishe isn't given a lot to work with as the preacher's morally-divided daughter, but gives a solid performance as well. Pretty much everyone else in the film is forgettable. The script has potential, but is overwritten with dialogue scenes that go on for far too long after their point is made

Smith does attempt to introduce some moral complexity to the film by shining a light on the dubious activities of the American government in dealing with terrorism, but again in such a ham-fisted way that it comes off as both crushingly obvious and an excuse for more shoot-outs and deaths. And the less said about the ludicrous ending, the better.

Red State (**) shows Kevin Smith trying something new in his career, which is laudable, and also has a few good performances and ideas in it. However, it is also not very well-written, its structure and pacing is shot to hell and the serious issues it attempts to raise come across as paper-thin excuses for scenes of violent carnage. The film teeters on the edge of exploiting real, serious and tragic news stories for cheap thrills, which I am certain was not the director's intention. The film is available now on DVD (UK, USA).