The best spy film of 2010

Rating: 8/10 (27 October 2010)

When the first trailer of RED was released there was buzz and anticipation that going to be a fun action comedy. Loosely based on a graphic novel by Warren Ellis, RED delivers and shows that other action heroes still got it.
Frank Moses (Bruce Willis), is a retired black-ops CIA agent who is struggling to adjust to civilian and spends his time telephone Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), a woman who works for the pensions services. But Frank has been tags RED, Retired, Extremely Dangerous and a target for assassination. He goes on the run, going to Kansas City to protect Sarah and reuniting with his out team, Joe (Morgan Freeman), Marvin (John Malkovich) and Victoria (Helen Mirren). They set out to find out why the CIA want them dead, with a young, ambitious and talented agent William Cooper (Karl Urban) leading the hunt.
RED is far from a perfect film, there are some holes, but it an entertaining film, providing action and comedy in equal measure. With a fun script director Robert Schwentke was able to give us visual comedy, but it is the verbal comedy and performers that is the real strength, with Parker and Malkovich delivering the most (how can anyone not love Mary-Louise Parker?). The first fight scene was a over-edited, but the rest of the action is well handled, like the scene in the cargo yard with explosive devices landing on people's heads. It would have been nice if the action was a little more violence but there are plenty of gun battles to satifity the audience. The basic plot is a Macguffin, an excuse for action sequences, there is still enough of focus and story was simple. Weirdly whilst RED is a comedy and light-hearted in it's approach with some holes (like how do Frank and Sarah travel across America so quickly), it is more believable then say a film like Salt, because there is a lack of technology, that the actions are resourceful and they is a simple focus.
There is an excellent cast in the film. As mentioned Parker and Malkovich were stand out performers, with Parker being a excellent comic performer (and well, one hell of MILF), she has just has natural comic timing and believable. It was fun that Malkovich plays a paranoid man, playing his is follow and well, turns out to be right. One of the themes is that Willis and Parker play lonely characters who are looking for companionship and do it well, playing a convincing couple, with Willis being a little like his character in Twelve Monkeys early in the film. Willis is a convincing action hero and I do like to see older actors kick butt. Freeman is such a strong film present that he can read the phone book and give a great performer whilst there is nothing sexier then Helen Mirren with a large gun. One of the best feature in character development is making William Cooper out to be a man doing his job and that he has a nice home life with his young children; a man who thinks he is doing the right thing and someone is not evil or bad, he is a real shade of grey. Urban is a good actor and I hope to see more from him. But Richard Dreyfuss basically plays his character like he was Dick Cleney, and whilst I do enjoy a Cleney bashing, the character was one-dimensional and false, totally underdeveloped. And whilst I like Brain Cox, his gives a poor caricatures of a Russian man and a bad Russian accent; it would have been better to cast an Eastern European actor.
But overall an fast paced adventure and a good way to spend two hours.