Seeing 'Red' Will Elicit Laughter, Not Anger

Red is just plain fun.  I love Bruce Willis here…that once young TV and film star is replaced with an older, yet still tough guy who is just as fun to watch as he was in Die Hard.  Willis, as usual, brings a sardonic edge to his character here…it’s just that this guy, Frank, is older than John McClane, and also edgier. 

It seems that Willis is best when he’s shooting someone and smirking at the same time.  And he does that in spades in Red. 

What’s fabulous is that John Malkovich and Morgan Freeman and Helen Mirren (yes, THAT Helen Mirren) do the same thing…shoot people and smirk and have lots of fun.  The story here is, surprisingly, pretty strong for an action movie.  Frank is a retired (and very bored) former CIA agent/assassin who finds himself back in the game after people start gunning for him.  He needs to find out who wants him dead and why his life is in danger. 

Along for the ride, he takes a woman who he has a crush on and several of his former team, which is where Mirren, Malkovich and Freeman come in.  Yes, it can be a little over the top at times, but if a film like this wasn’t overly campy, I would have been highly disappointed.  Even the title, which is an acronym for Willis’ status of “retired, extremely dangerous” is a hoot. 

Loosely based on a comic book trilogy of the same name, this film can, at times, be hilarious, serious, romantic and poignant, but is always fun to watch.  Watching Mirren pull off a very large automatic weapon and just annihilating people is too much for words.  I feel all of the actors are sort of making fun of their personas here.  Malkovich is a paranoid psycho, very much a kin to some of the serious psychos he’s played in his day, such as Mitch in In the Line of Fire.

Mirren, who won an Oscar for playing Queen Elizabeth II, the pinnacle of high society and class, here is as casual with a gun as the Queen is with a tiara.  And Freeman, who is also best known for his dramatic film roles, is a terminally ill man stuck in a retirement home until he’s “saved” from death by Frank.    Maybe it’s because I’m such a fan of the cast or because I have retired parents, but this one was just non-stop fun for me. 

No, it’s not a great movie, from a moviemaking or artistic, high-quality film standpoint.  There are no Oscar nominations for Mirren or the rest here.  But, if you don't smile at this one, something is wrong with you.  And sometimes, that means a lot more than high art. 

Red: 2010, rated PG-13, 111 minutes, directed by Robert Schwentke, starring Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich, Mary-Louise Parker, and Karl Urban.  The Niles Public Library owns this title on DVD.