I'd like to marry Dame Helen

Rating: 7/10 (17 October 2010)

The thing is, I usually have high expectations for Bruce Willis movies. Stuff's gonna get blowed up. I like that. I also have an affinity for movies involving multiple Oscar-nominated actors. But too often I'm disappointed. The actors have no chemistry, and the stuff blowing up is of little consequence. But Red was different. I found it impressively exciting – a fairly straightforward plot helped along by fun, inventive effects and truly wonderful acting.
Willis plays Frank Moses, a retired former CIA agent who happens to be falling in love with the voice of the woman (Mary-Louise Parker) who's responsible for making sure his pension checks are sent. Frank intentionally rips up his checks just so he can call back and talk to Sarah some more. Okay, that's a little weird, but innocuous enough.
Shortly after introduced to Frank and Sarah, a hit squad shows up at Franks home and basically destroys it, and thus our hero is on the run from whoever. He naturally travels to Kansas City to find Sarah, because he's pretty sure that the baddies who went after him had been monitoring his longish conversations with said bureaucratic wonk. Sarah's not exactly down with this strange man visiting her in the middle of the night and then taking her on a Grand Adventure, but since we know Frank's a good guy, we're sure she'll come around.
Turns out, quickly enough, that someone is out to kill not only Frank but members of his old team, something about an event that occurred in Guatemala in 1981. The team, all retired, reunites to figure out what the bejeepers is going on. Frank tracks down Joe (Morgan Freeman) and Marvin (John Malkovich) and brings in Victoria (Helen Mirren), formerly of MI6. Object: break into their former place of work (CIA!) and find out what's what.
Pretty standard stuff. Will the romance between Sarah and Frank? Will the team discover a Grander Conspiracy that involves some of the highest-ranking people in American politics? Will all of the team members survive? Will we discover that the guy who's supposed to take them down (Karl Urban) isn't, in fact, the baddest bad guy? Easy to figure out. But that's not the kind of movie this is supposed to be, one that needs figuring. It's an action movie with touches of comedy and quite a bit of surprising heart.
The biggest asset that the movie has is its cast. It's not typical for actors who have done well by themselves in other movies to become a cohesive unit in an ensemble movie like this. Sometimes the actors try to outshine – outact – each other, as if to prove they are just that good. As a result, the movie suffers; the plot is relegated to the background, and everyone chews scenery. End of story.
Ain't so here. These guys seem like they're long-lost friends. Willis and Freeman were infamously in the terrible Bonfire of the Vanities some twenty years ago, and Malkovich and Mirren sort of worked on The Hitchhiker's Guide, but that's about it. Mirren herself is really exceptional – no surprise – as a sharpshooter with her own colorful past.
Any movie that makes me realize how awesome even dumb movies can be is a winning movie. Red is an escapist movie. You don't watch it to see an intricate mystery; you go to see a slam-dunk, bang-up good time. And that's what you get.