Retired and dangerous

Rating: 7/10 (19 November 2013)

Comedy spy action films are hard to do successfully. Usually the tone is all wrong, there tends to be lots of violent action and not enough comedy or lots of comedy but it's unfunny.
RED is based on a graphic novel and Bruce Willis plays a retired spy. He is bored who phones a clerk every month for missed pension payments before he is forced to spring into action again. He is reunited with his former friends and foes to get to the bottom of what is happening.
The friends turn out to be Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman and John Malkovich as the paranoid Marvin. Karl Urban is the super CIA agent in pursuit, hampered by these old timers at every turn.
Mirren has a hoot of a time as a flower arranging hit woman and it's all nicely played along.
This is a good mix of laughs, action. A thriller with a dash of romance thrown in as well.