Bland Comic Thriller

Rating: 5/10 (18 October 2010)

The message of the new Bruce Willis action-comedy "Red" is that old coots kick ass. Ostensibly based on the limited-run, three-issue, DC Comics graphic novel, this sophomoric spy versus spy saga pits a quartet of retired but elite black op spies against every gun that the CIA can assemble. The cliché in all spy movies is loyal spies always wind up dodging bullets from their own folks rather than their foes. Ironically, an old Soviet spy pitches in to help our heroes. Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, and John Malkovich play the coots who wield arms against the CIA. Not only do they kick the CIA in the pants, but they also convince some of the smarter CIA folks to knock-off the idiots that wanted our old heroes dead. "Time Traveler's Wife" director Robert Schwentke does a better job of staging some dramatic action scenes with fusillades of gunfire and fireball explosions galore than "Whiteout" screenwriters Erich and Jon Hoeber did with adapting the Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner graphic novel. "Red," an acronym for 'retired, extremely dangerous,' qualifies as a lame-brained, half-baked shoot'em up with too much set-up and not enough pay-off. Meaning, Schwentke and his scenarists conjure up some half-hearted hokum about Willis and company going after the Vice President. The action scenes are straightforward while the dialogue scenes are sometimes too cute for their own good. Die-hard "Red" graphic novel aficionados may not appreciate this light-hearted approach. The graphic novel emphasized grim action without humor. Ellis has written about the film, "So, yes, RED the film is very different. Not least because it needed to generate more material than the book itself actually constituted." Schwentke and company have added new characters and fleshed out the plot. No, head CIA honcho Michael Beesley is not the chief villain. Moreover, Beesley's character never appears. Bruce Willis surrounds himself with several other spies to do what he would have done single-handed in the past. Mind you, "Red" surpasses both earlier Willis outings "Cop Out" and "Surrogates." No, it doesn't top "Live Free or Die Hard."
Retired CIA agent Frank Moses (Bruce Willis of "Die Hard") loves to flirt on the phone with customer service agent Sarah Ross (Mary-Louise Parker of "Weeds"), a Kansas City gal who wants to see the world. Basically, Frank tells her he isn't receiving his pension checks and uses this as pretext to chat. One night the CIA shows up with guns blazing, and our indestructible hero takes them out with extreme prejudice. Leaving Cleveland, Frank rushes to Kansas City to protect an initially reluctant Sarah who doesn't want to accompany him. Frank knows the CIA has tapped his phone and that the CIA would probably kill Sarah. While all this is transpiring, CIA Agent William Cooper (Karl Urban of "Star Trek") is ordered by his superior Cynthia Wilkes (Rebecca Pidgeon of "Heist") to terminate Frank Moses. Meantime, Frank and Sarah scoot to New Orleans to pick up Joe Matheson (Morgan Freeman of "Unforgiven") and they learn from Joe that the hit team that tried to eliminate Frank murdered an investigative journalist writing an expose piece. Our hero and heroine find a list of names, including Frank's name, and ponder its mysterious significance. Next, Frank and Sarah recruit paranoid conspiracy theorist Marvin Boggs (John Malkovich of "Con-Air"), who believes Frank is out to kill him. Marvin is so paranoid he has built a large, above-ground house to serve as a distraction for anybody who comes gunning for him.
Meanwhile, he invites Frank and Sarah to join him in his underground house. Marvin raises the hood on an old rusty automobile, and they clamber inside, only to descend on stairs to his subterranean residence. Marvin examines the list and points out that everybody on the list participated in a covert operation in Guatemala. They contact one of the guys on the list, Gabriel Singer (James Remar of "The Warriors"), and no sooner do they meet Gabriel than the CIA assassinates him. Frank isn't satisfied with what little that he knows, so he approaches Soviet espionage agent Ivan Simanov (Brian Cox of "The Glimmer Man") to furnish him with all the codes and faked identity cards so Sarah and he can break into the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Tom Cruise did this in "Mission: Impossible," but "Red" doesn't drum up any white-knuckled suspense. Frank masquerades as an army general to obtain the actual records of the Guatemalan incident. Naturally, as in "Mission: Impossible," our heroes set a fire to cover their escape and take advantage of a firefighter to slip past the villains. Frank tangles with Cooper during his foray at the agency and catches a bullet in the shoulder. Marvin takes our wounded hero to see Victoria (Helen Mirren of "The Queen") and she fixes him up in a jiffy and then signs on with them. Eventually, our heroes learn that Vice President Robert Stanton (Julian McMahon of "Nip/Tuck") wiped out an entire village in Guatemala when he was soldier. Frank and his men were dispatched to clean up debacle and now Stanton apparently wants them dead so they can tell no tales.
Everybody looks like they had a blast making this silly shenanigan of a spy movie. Bruce Willis doesn't do anything that we haven't seen him do better in better movies. Willis' co-stars outshine him. Watching delicate Helen Mirren on a noisy machine gun strafing either a limo or a group of gunmen is hoot. John Malkovich has the best role as a crazy agent who totes around a stuffed pink pig. Morgan Freeman gets the short shrift, while Richard Dreyfuss plays the nefarious villain behind Stanton. Screen legend Ernst Borgnine of "The Dirty Dozen" puts in a brief appearance as the man-in-charge of the CIA's records. Altogether, "Red" emerges as the kind of movie that you should wait to rent on DVD or Blu-Ray.