Starring: Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Mary-Louise Parker and Helen Mirren
Directed By: Robert Schwentke
Screenplay By: Jon Hoeber & Erich Hoeber
Based on the graphic novel by: Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner
Produced By: Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Mark Vahradian
Distributor: Summit Entertainment
Rating: PG-13, for intense sequences of action violence and brief strong language
Running Time: Approximately 111 minutes
Website: red-themovie.com
Budget: $58 Million
Genre: Action/Comedy
Release Date: October 15, 2010
The new action-adventure-comedy-romance RED featuring a star-studded, seasoned ensemble cast as former government agents who join forces after being marked for death by their former employers, has been coined as an action film for the AARP-set. There’s some truth to that, but this undeniably diverting big screen adaptation of the cult D.C. Comics graphic novel will likely hold just as much, if not more, appeal for the children and grandchildren of AARP members.
As the film opens, it’s Christmastime in Cleveland, and retired CIA operative Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is the only homeowner on his block not to have gotten around to decking his halls with boughs of holly. Lonely, and growing increasingly bored with his quiet, mundane life, Frank finds escape by wooing Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), a government pension clerk who’s as bored with her day-to-day routine as he is with his, in a series of flirtatious phone conversations.
Naturally, Frank’s idyllic suburban existence is soon disturbed when a virtual army of special-op agents come a-calling with enough ammunition and artillery to take out 10,000 men. Frank quickly and efficiently dispatches all of his uninvited visitors, and hightails it to Kansas City to rescue Sarah before she falls victim to a similar fate.
A fan of romance novels and escapism in general, Sarah is whisked away (okay, sort of kidnapped) from her comfy, boring environs as Frank sets out on a wide-ranging, cross-country trek to get the old team back together so they can get to the bottom of why the agency wants them all – and others – dead.
RED (short for “retired and extremely dangerous”) is the handiwork of German director Robert Schwentke (Flightplan and The Time Traveler’s Wife), who proves here that he knows his way around an elaborate action set piece. Credit is also due to screenwriter-brothers Jon and Erich Hoeber (Whiteout, and the forthcoming big screen version of Battleship) who took Ellis and Hamner’s grim graphic novel and lightened the proceedings up considerably; even the shooting-related injuries and fatalities (there are many of the latter) are relatively tame compared to the blood and guts typically on display in similarly violent, R-rated fare.
Though touched upon here and there, thankfully RED is not a meditation on aging and what that means in this day and age. The film stays loose and action-packed throughout. Suffice it to say, the very impressive ensemble cast elevates the material and makes all that suspending of your disbelief you’re called upon to do worth it in the end. Willis and Parker are ideally matched as romantic interests, and the camaraderie between him, a game Freeman, the scene-stealing Malkovich, and a tough-as-nails, machine gun-toting Mirren is pretty fun to watch. The always-welcome Brian Cox plays a Russian diplomat with ties to Mirren and company. And in this tale of retired veterans schooling the up-and-coming young’uns, Karl Urban, of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, playing a dogmatic CIA agent hot on their trail more than holds his own in a great, breakout turn.
Is RED the perfect amalgamation of action, adventure, comedy and romance like Romancing the Stone and Raiders of the Lost Ark are? No, but it’s far better executed (pun, intended) than similar genre hybrids like Fool’s Gold and Six Days, Seven Nights.
Grade: 3 stars (out of 5)
