A Fluffy Action Comedy

Rating: 5/10 (6 November 2010)

The action comedy Red is directed by Robert Schewentke and stars Bruce Willis, Mary Louise Parker, John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Karl Urban and Brian Cox. The film takes place all over the country and is set in modern day.
Frank Moses (Willis) is retired and extremely dangerous. He calls up the pension office frequently just so he talk to Sarah Ross (Parker) because he admires her. When a group of assassins tries to kill Moses he goes to Kansas City and kidnaps Ross because he fears that she may also be in danger. William Cooper (Urban) is a CIA agent who is assigned to track to Moses and take him down. Moses must find out why he is being hunted and he goes to his old friends Marvin Boggs (Malkovich), Joe Matheson (Freeman), and Victoria (Mirren) to help uncover the wide spread conspiracy. Nothing is more dangerous than the retired and extremely dangerous.
The screenplay by Jon and Erich Hoeber was weak and conventional. Every twist and turn was easily foreseen and I felt no attachment to any of the characters. Let's just start with something that annoyed me at the very beginning of the film. When the assassins enter Moses' home they would not be all grouped together because they could easily be shot down, they would separate and cover the whole house. Then after that the group of assassins outside of the house just shoot at the house in the middle of a neighborhood. Ridiculous! It would be so much easier to just do a search and destroy, not just a shoot a lot and hope you kill the guy. Now onto the characters. There was no need for Frank Moses to have a love interest, it just makes the film more corny. Secondly I never got to know either Moses or Ross. The character description for Moses would be retired CIA agent and Ross would be normal woman. That is all that you know about those characters. On a positive note there were some funny lines in the screenplay, most of them were from Marvin Boggs. Still though it is not a good comedy, and as you can see from my above comments it is not a good action film.
Robert Schwentke's direction was not terrible, even if it was great I could not give this film higher than a 7/10. He had some cool special effects going on, such as when Moses gets out of the police car and just starts shooting like it is nothing. But Schewentke is also to blame for the way the assassins at the beginning were choreographed so there goes the director points for cool special effects. Besides the special effects though there was nothing amazing about the shot choices. I can't imagine him giving much direction to the actors since they are all veterans. Willis, Freeman, Malkovich, and Mirren probably said to Schwentke during rehearsal how he isn't necessary to be there, we all know how to not really act in a movie that will hopefully win the opening weekend.
There were a lot of stylistic choices in the editing by Thom Noble. All the transitions with the post cards were an interesting touch to the film, it definitely didn't hurt it at all. I felt at times though that Red was trying to imitate Kick Ass with all of the special effects and stylistic editing. That isn't a bad thing but if it was it did not really compete with Kick Ass in that category.
The acting overall I would have to say is pretty poor, with one exception. Bruce Willis basically just read the lines and looked all suave, and he was a poor lead. He in no way brought me into the film the whole time I just kept thinking this movie is made for people to feel like they are watching a movie. The same goes for Mary Louise Parker, in how she just played a conventional normal woman put under extreme circumstances. Now the only person in this film that I can actually say is good is John Malkovich. He is great as being a paranoid, insane, ex spy who just wants to kill everyone and thinks everyone is trying to kill him. Almost all the laughs in the film comes from him, he steals the show away. Morgan Freeman is like Bruce Willis who plays a suave guy with a couple of one liners, nothing too special. Helen Mirren has a small part but she also brings in a few good one liners. Karl Urban plays the CIA agent trying to kill Frank Moses and he is decent nothing special. He in no way does a bad job, he just doesn't do a good job. I just have to say that the woman that Urban's character takes orders from in the film is probably one of the worst actresses I have ever seen. All she does is say lines with an evil voice. I'm not going to look up her name because then she wins. Lastly Brian Cox is kind of decent as a Russian spy guy, he gives a few laughs out.
If you were really hoping to see a movie that is extremely thin then this is the one for you. I'm giving this a 5/10 just because Malkovich did some strong work in here. If you want to know some better action comedies than this off the top of my head there is Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Live Free or Die Hard, and True Lies. This is just a light hearted movie, so if that's what you're into then watch this.