RED (***)
Directed by: Robert Schwentke
Starring: Bruce Willis, Mary-Louise Parker, John Malkovich, Helen
Mirren, Karl Urban, Morgan Freeman, Brian Cox, Rebecca Pidgeon, Richard
Dreyfuss, Ernest Borgnine
Seen: November 20th 2010
*** Out of ****
The first thing you see in RED (Retired, Extremely Dangerous), is
Frank Moses’ (Willis) alarm clock counting down the seconds to 6 am and then,
instead of the alarm going off, Frank simply gets up and walks out of his room,
exactly at 6, to the second. Frank has this small ritual where he tears up his
pension cheque, allowing him to call the pension office where he gets the
chance to talk to Sarah (Parker), a younger lady he’s grown close to during the
course of a multitude of calls to pension services. You see, Frank is a bored retired
black-ops CIA agent, so to him it is actually exciting when it becomes apparent
that someone wants him and a group of his friends/colleagues silenced for good.
He naturally assumes that to include Sarah, as they have been talking quite a
lot, and as a start to his road-trip to get to his friends, he pays her a visit
as well.
The CIA assigns ambitious Agent William Cooper (Urban) to get rid of
Frank, and when they meet up the two are, surprisingly, evenly matched. Frank
visits Joe Black (Freeman), his old mentor, in an old age home, and the two
friends set out a plan. In Frank and Sarah’s investigations they manage to
track down Marvin (Malkovich), one of Frank’s exceedingly paranoid old
contacts. They break in to the CIA headquarters, a break-in that goes down surprisingly
smooth, and eventually the whole team gets back together when they visit
Victoria (Mirren), the best wet-work asset in the business, at her very Victorian
home. When asked by the novice Sarah what wet-work is, Victoria dryly replies: “I
kill people dear…”. With the team back together they can uncover the reason
they are being hunted, and confront their pursuers head-on.
RED is great fun, and I believe it is made more so by the fact that
you can see the actors are enjoying themselves. The talent of Helen Mirren,
Bruce Willis, John Malkovich and Morgan Freeman add a little zest to the movie,
not to leave out all the other old thespians in RED. Ernest Borgnine plays a
CIA record keeper, and he is 93 years old. Frank Moses’ relationship with Sarah
is quite sweet, as Sarah takes some time to come around to Frank’s initially not-so-convincing
arguments. Helen Mirren gets to kick some serious ass and Morgan Freeman even shows
up disguised as an African dictator. Probably the most entertaining character
is Marvin, who, after being given daily doses of LSD for 11 years, is not quite
right in the head – but he works with the team and somehow manages to get
results.
RED is fun and entertaining and while the plot and the action feels,
at times, just a little bit stale, the end product is a relaxing and exhilarating
movie that still requires a little attention to keep up with all the characters
and plot developments. I believe any movie that can keep things this light
hearted while presenting some fun action deserves to be seen, and this one will
entertain most, if not all, with it’s perfect blend of humour, action, and intrigue.
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