Red | Director Robert Schwentke | Score: 5.1
“I haven’t killed anyone in years,” a Russian former spy laments to his old, now-retired adversary. “That’s sad,” his American counterpart replies. Such is the way of the aging super secret agent. That is, unless they are as formidable as Frank Moses (Bruce Willis), a former black ops general, languishing away in seclusion in Cleveland, wiling away his hours repeatedly calling Sarah (Mary Louise Parker), a perky, sweet-voiced claims adjuster at a social security branch.
Frank is more than content to live this kind of life, until a group of fellow black-ops agents suddenly creep into his house and try to assassinate him. After making short work of them, he escapes to Sarah’s apartment in Kansas City, warning her of the danger she’s in, before going on to round up the rest of his old squad, including a paranoid weapons expert (John Malkovich), a kindly intelligence operative (Morgan Freeman), a grand British dame (Helen Mirren), and the aforementioned Russian spy (Brian Cox), all of whom are expert at everything they lay their hands on. Chasing them are multiple CIA agents, black ops Visigoths, and one superagent (Karl Urban), who is nearly as good as they are.
So, essentially, we have where The Bucket List meets The Bourne Supremacy, which is about as awkward a fit as you might imagine. Based on the graphic novel by Warren Ellis and Cully Hammer, the film errs on the side of comic bookish in its approach, from its bright colors and jarring action sequences, to the corners it cuts as it takes the express lane through its nonsensical plot. Much like this past summer’s Salt, the film wants to get to its set pieces so badly, it never wants to get bogged down with any kind of authenticating detail, and it suffers for it (there are more easy escapes from seemingly impenetrable fortresses than you can keep track of). The film sports a kind of serio-comedic approach, further reducing the stakes to the point where you never have to worry about any real danger coming to the heroes. Vet thespians Malkovich, Mirren and Cox take turns stuffing their faces with scenery, while Willis and Freeman smirk their way through every gun battle as if their characters have already read the end of the script.
Finally, isn’t all this reductive self-cannibalization going through a few too many permutations? At this point, we have movies based on graphic novels that themselves were largely based on a classic cinema style (noir or pulp thriller). Properties that are snapped up by movie studios and regurgitated as cinematic equivalents of themselves. Might you just cut out the middleman?
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Piers Marchant is a Philly-based writer and editor, and the EIC (and film critic) for two.one.five magazine (215mag.com). His reviews can be found on 215mag.com and his tumblr blog, Sweet Smell of Success. You can also follow him on twitter @kafkaesque83.
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