Grade: B-
Listening to the plot of Robert Schwentke’s “RED,” you really couldn’t be faulted for thinking it to be nothing more than a bland sequel to one of this year’s many “team” movies like “The A-Team,” “The Losers,” or even “The Expendables.”
In the film, a group of CIA agents are hunted out of retirement and take revenge against an army of faceless, covert ops agents that are trying to stop them, with a healthy dose of explosions, guns and one-liners along the way. But it’s with an almost comically great cast of actors that, frankly, sound like they belong in a much better film that “RED” is able to, at least sometimes, discover the fun in the unoriginal while mustering a little bit of originality on its own.
The plot is something that “RED” is really not all that concerned with, and exists more as a tool to push a bunch of really good actors together to do a bunch of really violent stuff. What you need to know is this: Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman and John Malkovich are all ex-CIA agents who are forced back into civilian life, but really just want to get back to going on missions like the old days. Karl Urban, the only real “young” actor with anything more than fleeting face-time, is trying to hunt Willis and the gang down because of orders from the higher ups.
But let’s be honest, if you’re going to see “RED,” you’re not going for some carefully crafted treatise on continental security relations, you’re going for the fun. And for that, there’s the cast to thank.
Willis, who I can honestly say was one of the worst parts of the Kevin Smith abomination “Cop Out” from earlier this year, is much better here as the bored, tender-hearted Frank Moses, who only longs to be with his love, the also-bored-with-life Sarah, as played by Mary-Louise Parker, who does a pretty commendable job considering the only other lead female is Dame Helen Mirren.
Mirren, by the way, gets to fire a battery of firearms with as much elegance as you’d expect from someone who played Queen Elizabeth II and Sofya Tolstoy. You would think her appearance would be jarring to the film’s overall pace, but after her role here, I really wouldn’t mind seeing her brandish a machine gun once again.
I can’t imagine that anyone could object to the concept of Morgan Freeman being a, for lack of a better term, ‘old horn dog’ who has a knack for silently disposing of his foes well after he’s taken his heart medicine for the night. I never felt for a second that he was having anything but fun every moment he was on screen, and it’s tough not to like somebody when they’re having as much fun as Freeman is.
Malkovich is crazy and steals every scene he’s in. He’s paranoid, but he’s right. The world is after him and with the right combination of murderous zeal and a total lack of social skills, he pushes his character, Marvin Boggs, to have some of the most memorable lines and, arguably, brings him the closest to being a well-rounded character.
As for everybody else, well, there’s Karl Urban, and that’s about it, save for a few cameos that I’d hate to ruin here. Urban’s Will Cooper has perhaps the most traditional character arc, but that’s not saying much with respect to the rest of film. Urban works well as the good guy conflicted about working for the probably bad guys, and the fight that breaks out between him and Willis in the middle of the CIA bureau is a highlight of the film.
If it seems like I’ve spent a good deal talking about the cast, it’s because the cast members are what hold “RED” up. The film’s action is fine, but certainly nothing you haven’t seen a million times already done better, and the story is so by-the-numbers that you’re able to envision the writers studying the “Bourne” series or Joel and Ethan Coen’s CIA-infused “Burn After Reading” for guidance the entire way through.
Still, “RED” is a C+ movie with A+ actors, and for that it balances out to be a fun, occasionally memorable, movie-going experience. Just don’t think it’s ever going to be anything more.
Contact the critic at vburnton@asu.edu
