A Comedy Action Love Story Willis Special

Rating: Null/10 (18 October 2010)

From the moment Bruce Willis became the perfect action hero in "Die Hard", he has been an audience favorite when overcoming insurmountable odds, while barely getting bruised for his efforts. In this turn, Bruce isn't a cop, but a retired CIA agent, who some unknown force is looking to liquidate. As in past films, swarms of bad supposed good guys come after him. As always, by stealth or by force, Willis outguns or is no match for whomever is sent to get him.
First, it is a CIA "hit squad". Then, the always good Karl Urban ( "Chronicles of Riddick", "The Bourne Supremacy" ) is put on the case, and the cat and mouse game unfolds as Willis seeks to learn why he has been targeted for assassination.
Unlike the Bourne movies, always deadly serious, this movie actually successfully combines comedy with action, to create an amusing travelogue set like chapters to a book, by the use of postcards with the location of the next scenario. What sets this movie apart is an eclectic mixture of actors you would never expect to see in a Willis action movie. Joining Willis in his quest are no less than Morgan Freeman, John Malkovitch, Helen Mirren, and Brian Cox, other retired agents and Cox as the ex-KGB agent. The former nemesis is now a friend, and those who should be friends, his ex-CIA employers, are now the bad guys.
Malkovitch is the scene stealer every time he is on the screen, and his LSD induced mania, described tongue in cheek by Willis, is the result of a past CIA experiment in which Malkovitch was dosed for eleven years. The paranoid ex-agent is usually right when he senses danger, but is still remarkably efficient and proficient, even in his crazed state.
Mary Louise Parker is the innocent caught up in the whirlwind of Willis' hunt for clues, and becomes the hunted along with him. She joins the zany bunch of elder agents by circumstance at first, then by choice. Willis, a bored retiree has a long distance crush for the government pension girl, who doesn't realize his former line of work, and who is forced into the fray because as Willis says, "they know I like you".
Mayhem, explosions, full scale attacks by huge forces are still no match for the indestructible hero, though there is a sacrifice made, and some blood shed, by some of the Willis cohorts.
This isn't rocket science, but a great date movie, a good time, and most important, worth the investment in a ticket. The last time I could say that was "Inception". Look for the cameos of Ernest Borgnine and Richard Dreyfuss. An 8 out of 10, for perfect execution of a Willis reprisal and revival. Go see, and have fun too.