Government retirees get their team back together.
Artwork by Ed Gloor
There is a plethora of movies about spies, but not very many about what happens when they get old. RED shows that some retirees still have what it takes. It’s seems natural to see Bruce Willis (The Sixth Sense) as a retired man; after several action movies, it’s about time he took a break.
The first few scenes of RED are immersive, but it’s like being immersed in mud. We see a clock at six in the morning, and Bruce Willis waking up. He puts on his robe, has a cup of coffee, and has a slow and quiet start to his day. Fortunately, by noon, we find out the name of the character he is playing. It reminds me of the beginning of Stranger Than Fiction (Marc Forster, 2006), except there is no narrator to explain who the protagonist is, his occupation, or frankly, why anyone should care. It put me in the mind of Bruce Willis, the actor, not Frank Moses, the character he is playing. This set the mood of an old retired man who keeps mostly to himself, spends the winter inside his house, and doesn’t have a feeling for upcoming holidays.
Fortunately, the action comes in immediately afterward, when several men armed with guns and body armor break into the house. Then we see more of Frank Moses than Bruce Willis, when Frank disarms and knocks out all of the invaders. Shortly after that, he is on the run from killers who he doesn’t know, for reasons he has no clue about.
The rest of the story is fairly predictable after the first clues are dropped. Moses has fallen for a girl who works answering phones to help retired CIA members with their paychecks, and over quite a few calls, they become friends. She goes along with the ‘come with me if you want to live’ statement that Moses makes without question. It’s close to a genuine on-screen relationship, but Sarah Ross (Mary-Louise Parker, Howl) is just too eager to be on the run from dangerous killers. The cast works together well, except for a few characters.
Let’s start with the Russian. Take everything commonly known about Russians in America from movies and collect it. Okay. Based on this, they are probably male, heavy-set, have a fashion sense that involves furs, and a clichéd taste in adult beverages. All of the above describe Ivan Simanov (Brian Cox, The Bourne Supremacy), a former member of Moses’ team.
Victoria (Helen Mirren, The Queen) is the British member of the team who apparently needs no last name and was living in the peace and quiet of a nice cottage in New England. She has a history with MI6 (Great Britain’s CIA), the CIA, and apparently worked with Moses before she retired. Life as a florist has been dull for her, and she said she couldn’t adjust to “normal” life. She is eager to get her team back together and return to espionage and killing. RED barely gives her more of a background than that.
Joe Matheson (Morgan Freeman, Invictus) has retired from the CIA and is now living at a retirement home. Actor Morgan Freeman played this role well, although his character is about 20 years older than he is. He is an old man with wisdom, a plan, and helps solve the problems with which the gang is faced.
Marvin Boggs (John Malkovich, Secretariat) is a member of the old gang, and is very paranoid. He carries a couple weapons with him at all times, notes the air crafts that are flying overhead, and is suspicious of everyone. He also has a large arsenal of weapons and tends to hold them as one would hold a small child.
Overall, RED was a good movie. It probably won’t win much when it comes to awards, but the characters have a chemistry that feels like they have worked together in the past. It’s worth checking out because it’s a little different than the typical spy movie. If Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich, Brian Cox, Mary Louise-Parker, and Bruce Willis got together to watch a football game and ended up writing a screenplay, it would probably be something like RED.
★★★☆☆
