Movie: RED
Starring: Bruce Willis, John Malkovich and Morgan Freeman
Director: Robert Schwentke Writers: Jon and Erich Hoeber
Duration: 111 minutes
2 stars out of 4
RED is as old as its actors. When 93 year-old Ernest Borgnine looks like the newest addition RED can offer, this is clearly a concept in its own dotage. RED does the opposite of what Kick-Ass did earlier this year: instead of using lurid, profane teenagers, RED takes the elderly and idolizes them. They’re locked and loaded, but the film isn’t.
It’s a real letdown. For one, you have John McClane (Bruce Willis), God (Morgan Freeman), the Queen (Helen Mirren), Agamemnon (Brian Cox), and well, who doesn’t know what it’s like being John Malkovich? This is an all-star cast, who really seem to be playing bad-ass versions of their previously-played characters. Oddly, the chemistry is pedestrian and for some reason this is a B Team with A-class actors.
RED feels like the duration of Lawrence of Arabia. If only it had David Lean to save the day and actually make these fine actors heroes. This movie should have been R-rated with over the top fun and zero yielding grace. Yet it kind of sits there—as if it really needs a walker.
Director Robert Schwentke (Flightplan) is not the problem here. His direction has the reckless energy of his nostalgic action heroes. You cannot help but giggle when his scenes transition to and fro through postcard wipes. Don’t the elderly love postcards? There’s even a scene when Willis and his younger lover Sarah Ross (Mary-Louise Parker) escape the enemy headquarters of William Cooper (Karl Urban, he’s a tough one) by switching Willis with a fireman. They exchange suits and Willis carries out the fireman’s body in Willis’s bloody attire. We don’t see that one coming.
The problem, I think, hands itself to the script. Writer Jon and Erich Hoeber (who wrote the hopelessly insipid Whiteout), have the task of combining wit and vigor to suggest there are jokes beyond these heroes’ ages.
RED even plays the romance card. We’re to believe Willis and Parker are to be intimate lovers who met on the telephone. Of course Parker teams up with Willis, despite death following him at every corner and the Vice-President of the CIA clearly wanting his head. The safer (and convenient) route is for her to go on this mission with the resilient Willis—who still seems a little shaken after Cop Out.
RED does not exactly cop out, but it’s The A-Team with arthritis. The action scenes go clickity-clack and we go ho-hum. I’m calling all these characters by their actual last names because RED is essentially a star vehicle. We go there for Freeman but this is no godly pursuit. RED is better titled for a Japanese horror flick, instead of this terribly goofy acronym: Retired Extremely Dangerous.
Here’s a better one: BAD, Banal And Dull.
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