"Red" had every advantage an action comedy could hope for: a jaw−dropping cast — including Oscar−winners Helen Mirren and Morgan Freeman, and action legend Bruce Willis — lots of stuff blowing up, and the untapped gold mine of humor found in the retirement lives of secret agents. Yet for all it was handed, "Red" drops the ball.
The film centers on retired CIA agent Frank Moses (Willis), who suddenly finds himself back in action after his former employer attempts to kill him. He embarks on a quest to uncover the source of the plot, accompanied by Sarah (Mary−Louise Parker), an unwilling, oddball government employee. His search reunites him with other retiree agents, and a million "old man" jokes ensue.
The film's greatest assets are the unexpected presences of Freeman and Mirren. Mirren does a nice job ribbing her own regal reputation, at one point daintily trading her stilettos for combat boots before riddling the vice−presidential motorcade with machine gun fire.
And of course, any action film would be lucky to boast the original American action hero, Bruce Willis, last seen in this summer's "The Expendables." Willis is still, for lack of a better word, awesome. He hatches MacGyver−style escape plans and jumps from moving cars as nobody else could, though this time around with just a little less gusto. His age is showing, but to his credit, he never denies it.
The movie starts to falter with the kidnapping of Sarah. Her relationship with Frank is granted all of a five−minute introduction, yet it is continually relied upon as the catalyst for much of the film's action and suspense. "Red" uses the same formula that also failed to work in this year's Tom Cruise/Cameron Diaz vehicle, "Knight and Day" — older man kidnapping a young woman he barely knows for her own protection. The age difference is distracting, but not as much as the irrationality of Willis' calculating, meticulous agent being attracted to Parker's flighty, immature uselessness.
The film's real Achilles' heel, however, is its incredibly convoluted plot. Frank's journey to the center of the conspiracy involves so many twists and turns that the audience loses its sense of direction. Furthermore, the partnership of British, Russian and American secret agents is never satisfactorily explained. Even the film's final revelation offers little clarity. The confusion makes it difficult to justify the complicated journey.
Where director Robert Schwentke ("The Time Traveler's Wife" (2009)) fails to lend clarity, he succeeds in offering pure dynamite eye candy. Bombs and crashes abound (the CIA is far from subtle in this film), and each character shoots approximately 30 million bullets into various cars and people.
Schwentke alternates between beautiful 360−degree shots and close−ups so close the action appears blurry. The effect is one of stylized intensity, though, and the film has a sense of maturity within its fistfights.
Of course, the action involves a serious suspension of one's understanding of the laws of physics, but that unreality hardly detracts from the action.
None of the film's villains offer much in terms of character development. Karl Urban's ("Star Trek" (2009)) CIA villain is mildly intimidating, but is not given enough screen time to offer sufficient explanation for his actions. Talented actor Julian McMahon of "Nip/Tuck" (2003−10) barely makes an appearance as the vice president. A little of his mischievousness would have been much more interesting than Urban's uninterestingly mysterious CIA boss.
Retirement jokes abound, sometimes with success. But the film fails to do more than gently poke at the humor of retired men and women of action. The subject is a relatively unexplored one, but the film fails to take full advantage of it. The over−burdened plot leaves little time for the philosophic consideration of life after the last mission.
For all of its shortcomings, "Red" is still enjoyable, if not distinctly understandable. It is certainly not a stand−out film, but action fans will get some entertainment out of it.
