Initially, all Avery wants is for them to take responsibility for their actions, but the very reasonable recompense this well-liked, peaceful store owner seeks is met with nothing more substantial than polite indifference and the odd empty apology. Robert Englund and Tom Sizemore as the teenagers’ fathers shrug off his accusations, and the DA doesn’t think Avery’s case is worth the trouble it would take to prosecute. Things seem to be looking up when a friend brings in a local TV journalist to cover the story but even her human interest pieces aren’t enough to bring out the truth. In the end, Avery feels he has no choice except to take the task upon himself.
The story gets going quickly and wraps up with a satisfying bang, but Red’s pacing suffers some as Avery bangs his head against the wall trying to do the right thing without succumbing to the vengeful insistence of the proud army man he once was. There’s some uneven work through the second act, too, particularly from Kim Dickens as the intrepid reporter, whose three-year deployment in the Deadwood desert as an abused prostitute-cum-lesbian brothel operator seems more natural in comparison. Stephen Susco’s script doesn’t give her much to work with, but she can’t convince even on the sole count of her one-note role. More damningly, there’s no chemistry between her and Cox despite the screen-time they share, the end result of which being that the pivotal secrets Avery reveals to her character ring hollow. Sizemore is similarly one-dimensional as the ultimate villain of the piece, but he gives his shallow character arc the usual poor man’s Michael Madsen, which is to say he frowns quite well. Cox, too, stumbles on a few of his lines, most notably outside the courthouse when he snaps at the Santa-shaped sheriff.
The cast are otherwise well equipped – young Noel Fisher of The Riches is just shy of scene-stealing as anarchic dog-slaughterer Danny – but it’s lucky, in the end, that so much of Red relies on Cox, whose efforts ably support the meandering narrative. Although his performance is too underplayed to be a powerhouse, Cox gives everything away while overtly betraying nothing; his finest moment, in Red at the least, is when Danny’s father throws a chance at redemption back at Avery. A revelatory shot captures the eventual bubbling-over of his embitterment: as the old man makes to leave, Sizemore’s character stops him in his tracks and the frame splits an extreme close-up of Avery in half, the better to see the patience in his age-worn face positively twisting into an astringent grimace. The mise-en-scene casts Avery as every bit the Two Face the audience has been waiting to see, and when he finally lets loose, the horrific results are suitably gratifying, if a little throwback.
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