Best Feel Good Movie of the Year

Rating: 8/10 (18 January 2019)

15 October 2010. Sometimes it just feels great just to feel good and the movie Red eventually provides just that experience as this late summer comes to a close. There is seriousness, outlandishness, poignancy, drama, action thrills edited together in scenes that in themselves can see millions without words. This well written script has almost all of it and the difficult balance between comedy and drama is artfully and delicately put together without ripping apart the movie. With BOURNE-like precision along with the MR. AND MRS. SMITH (2005) lightness, Red brings together a multi-talented movie in a comedy-drama with an inner heart for a number of characters, even the antagonist assassin in the movie.
Reminiscent of TROPIC THUNDER (2008) in its comedy-drama genre, yet with even more style, and more along the lines of Steve Carell's GET SMART (2008) yet with even more freedom to develop fresh characters that brings out the best of the all-star cast. Singular scenes and individual character performances are also echo some of the nice comedy, psychological action from THE MATADOR (2005). Perhaps the great apparent weakness or omission is the lack of great disguises used in the movie which would be assumed would be important and lacking the slick and subtle comedy drama character such as Jeff Goldblum in MR. FROST (1990). Even the comedy-family-drama of THE NANNY (2007) or FUNNY PEOPLE (2009) reflects the new delicate interplay of various movie genres that RED seems to have successfully captured.
Both predictable and perhaps somewhat unpredictable, the balance between to two elements in this movie captures the best of both cinema worlds resulting in one of the most entertaining and psychologically satisfying movie of the year.