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Frank Moses (Bruce Willis), left, fights off assassins with Marvin (John Malkovich) and Victoria (Helen Mirren) in the action film “RED.” |
I walked into Robert Schwentke’s “RED” thinking I would see a silly, geriatric revisiting of “The A-Team” or “Mission: Impossible.”
I got a crazy, off-the-charts, action comedy lamenting how society shoves aside senior citizens and fails to capitalize on all the years of experience, skill and talent they still have to offer.
“RED” couldn’t be any more pro-retiree than if it had been bankrolled by the AARP.
John Malkovich succinctly sums up the general attitude of “RED” with four simple words, uttered right after somebody calls him “old man and his well-placed bullet stops a grenade launcher projectile from reaching its target.
“Old man, my (bleep)!” he says.
Most of the main characters in“RED” — based on Cully Hamner and Warren Ellis’ graphic novel — are retired killers for the CIA. (Hence the title, an acronym for Retired: Extremely Dangerous.)
We learn this soon after we meet lonely bachelor Frank Moses (“Die Hard superstar Bruce Willis), who spends his time on the phone chatting up Sarah Ross (Mary-Louis Parker, stuck with the film’s weakest character), an administrator for government pensions.
One night a squad of well-equipped assassins comes for Moses, who anticipates their every move and quickly dispatches them faster than John McClane ever could.
In short order, Moses finds Sarah — whom he has never physically met — and kidnaps her, knowing that whoever put the contract out on him knows about their phone relationship, and that she has now become a target as well.
Two questions prompt Moses to return to active duty: Who wants him dead and why? (Read more…)