Review: RED

Bruce Willis is back in his element for the engaging, well-done action comedy RED, which stands for Retired: Extremely Dangerous, about a team of former black-op agents on one last assignment. If you think Willis is getting a bit old for these types of physical roles know that at age 55, he’s actually the youngest member of this group rounded out by John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman, and Helen Mirren. But RED seems determined to prove that just because these actors are getting long in the tooth, it doesn’t mean they can’t kick all kinds of ass and audiences of all ages should enjoy this fun, if lightweight new movie. a zippy, fast-paced two hours that delivers the goods for adrenaline junkies and comes strongly recommended.

RED is the file-stamped status of Frank Moses (Willis), an over-the-hill former CIA agent who once ‘toppled governments’ but is now retired living in drab suburbia, bored but for the flirty phone calls he shares with Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), the sweet clerk who mails him his pension checks. One night he finds himself the target of a SWAT team-clad gang of assassins, and after dispatching them Willis-style, he finds Sarah, convinced that whoever is after him might target her next, and teams up with a group of his fellow retirees. These include Joe (Freeman), Marvin (Malkovich) and Victoria (Mirren), all pursued by determined CIA super-agent William Cooper (Karl Urban). They collectively decide to do what it takes to maintain their survival and find out why they are being targeted.

RED is as loud and violent as you’d expect from a movie about a shaggy gang of semi-automatic-toting geriatrics, but it’s mostly played for laughs with the sort of tongue-in-cheek dialog that Willis especially, excels at. The thin plot moves predictably from point A to point B and there’s zero tension, but writers Jon and Erich Hoeber (adapting Cully Hamner’s and Warren Ellis’s limited DC comic book of the same name) work hard delivering wisecracks and zingers that ably bridge the many wild action sequences. What makes RED work is the smart cast. Wills hasn’t been this loose since the last DIE HARD and there’s a tough, nicely choreographed fistfight between him and Karl Urban that’s a real corker. Mary-Louise Parker, all innocence and reaction, provides much of the comedy and she and Willis make a most appealing couple. Malkovich, whether charging the police screaming like a maniac while strapped with bombs or playing cat-and-mouse with a frumpy but dangerous housewife, gets the biggest laughs and there’s something sexy about watching 65 year old high-brow goddess Helen Mirren locked and loaded mounting a machine gun turret and blasting away (the only actor who seems a bit underused is Morgan Freeman). I don’t see any Oscars in its future, but for a fun night at the movies, RED delivers.

Overall: 4 out of 5 stars