quite good fun

Rating: 6/10 (8 February 2011)

Based on a graphic novel, as everything is these days, Red (retired extremely dangerous) tells the story of Frank a retired black ops agent who must put his team back together when he realises they are all in grave danger. Frank, played by Bruce Willis is bored; the highlight of his retirement is destroying his pension checks just so he can ring Sarah at the pension company to chat. His idyllic existence is one day broken when a team of heavily armed men turn his house into dust in an attempt to kill him, it's up to him then and a few old friends to try and get to the bottom of the mysterious kill squad. Now I've not read the graphic novel so I've no idea how closely this relates, the premise is OK and it's well executed but ultimately it just falls flat, there doesn't seem to be enough substance and it ends up just being a waste of an excellent cast. Sure seeing Helen Mirren wielding heavy arms is fun but she doesn't even enter the film until the end, Willis is smirky, Malkovich is goofy, Urban is stern, Freeman should know better and Parker is well Parker. Add them all together and you should have an explosive mix but it never quite delivers on the promise. It's nice to see Richard Dreyfuss and Ernest Borgnine pop up and there are a couple of great set pieces but I couldn't shake the feeling that it should have been better than it was. Fun for a couple of hours if there's nothing else to do and you want to see Mirren kick some butt.