RED* is a comic book action movie in which ageing Hollywood heavyweights indulge in some gunplay and quip-slinging without ever looking like they’re enjoying themselves as much as they might have done ten years ago. Since the ravages of time are afflicting the characters and the actors portraying them there is a kind of melancholy parallel to be found, adding unintentional poignancy to certain scenes. You won’t hate it, but you’ll hardly fall in love with it. It’s the tolerable packet of smoky chicken and chive flavour crisps at the bottom of Hollywood’s multipack, complete with stale softness and a mildly nauseous aftertaste.
Human Oscar statuette Bruce Willis plays Frank Moses, a retired CIA assassin whose life now revolves around making calls to a loveably/affectedly quirky call centre worker called Sarah Roses (Mary-Louise Parker) and failing to adjust to normal life as a pensioner. After being attacked by a team of balaclava wearing killers in his home he grabs Sarah and goes on the run to discover why he’s suddenly the subject of a deadly pursuit by CIA fixer William Cooper (Karl Urban). This involves teaming up with other former CIA operatives played by Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman and John Malkovich whilst winning the love of Ms Roses. Along the way there are some heavy-handed high jinks and a handful of Christmas cracker one-liners that aren’t nearly as clever as they need to be. This is harmless humour that fails to ignite any emotion, and the plot drags its feet a bit in the second act before heading to a rushed conclusion that saps empathy and doesn’t quite feel worth the trip.
There’s plenty of action in RED, but it never feels like it’s implemented in a natural way. Locations are arbitrarily introduced, as if the filmmakers (or the comic writers before them) thought “This’ll be a cool place for a set piece, now how can we pull the characters here?” It’s no more contrived than its contemporaries, but its wearing its plot like lose fitting tracksuit around the pallid, wrinkled flesh of the action like a nan at the gym. And like said nan it has difficulty in pulling this off.
I’m worried that you might read a tinge of ageism into this review, and I’d like to dispel any idea that this is my angle. The age of the tough character is immaterial and arguably real menace and violent ability can only arrive with experience. However, in RED you’re presented with a bunch of slightly awkward looking celebrities pretending to be the world’s most competent killers. It’s a pension cheque-thin conceit that manages mediocrity and nothing more. Sorry to sound like a broken record, but RED is a good rental but more difficult to recommend for cinematic viewing.
*This is an acronym disguising the clunky ‘Retired Extremely Dangerous’ which is definitely missing a grammatical conjunction.
