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TagsBY JOE TYRRELL
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
MOVIE REVIEW
Some of our most senior and respected thespians gathered, trying to determine how to play out the golden years of their careers.
Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich, Bruce Willis, Brian Cox, Richard Dreyfuss, even Ernest Borgnine, they considered the possibilities and reached a decision: better "Red" than dead.
After amassing an explosive stockpile of talent, though, this Summit Entertainment release turns into a smoke grenade, a minor diversion.
Intermittently pleasant, occasionally stylish, mildly amusing, "Red" helps some gracefully aging members of the acting community pay their mortgages, the "new normal" for Hollywood as the Great Recession also drains our creativity.
"Red" is yet another CIA caper; you know, like Henry Kissinger's order to kill Gen. René Schneider Chereau, commander-in-chief of Chile's armed forces, when he would not go along with the agency's coup against the elected civilian government.This "Red" is also yet another DC Comics contribution to the movies, drawn from the graphic novel by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner. That "drawn" is not to be taken literally. But for the occasional postcard, and some scenic explosions, there's not a lot of art visible.
On the red shades chart, this movie is not a wild fuchsia, like Angelina Jolie's swinging summer spectacle "Salt." It's not a complex burgundy, slowly revealing notes and textures, like "Rubicon," wrapping up its first season on AMC.
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This is not a candy apple "Red," like USA Network's summer confection "Covert Affairs," which boasts the cutest cast ever assembled on cable television.
This movie is more an exposed brick red, solid, subdued, a reassuring background, all the more impressive in that it is still standing despite all those chips and gouges. Oh wait, they're plot holes.
Of course, what could be cuter than old people with big guns? Perhaps old people with rocket-propelled grenades?
For a few minutes, the movie flirts with being something different. Pensioner Frank Moses (Willis) is on the phone, sweet talking a woman in some distant human resources department into sending him a replacement for the check he's in the process of destroying.
The ever ready Willis gives what he's asked for on-screen, and just for a moment, it seems that director Robert Schwentke is asking him to play a realistic character, stoic in the face of whatever shenanigans are about to be unloosed.
Next thing, Frank Moses is busy killing a Winnebago load of black ops agents, sent to kill him while turning his house in the middle of a nice suburban Ohio block into splinters. Then, he's off to Kansas City to kidnap his phone friend just before more trigger-happy agents creep in to kill her.
These are moves Willis has made a hundred times before... hmm, all of "Red" falls into that category. But at least he knows the drill. His kidnap victim, Mary-Louise Parker, gets it, too. They may just be going through the motions, but they can.
Parker introduced the movie's real theme. Passably attractive as a young woman, she has evolved into a seriously sly and cute forty-something who also seems ready for anything.
As the ingenue, she's a great hors d'oeuvre for Mirren, still dishy at 65, and Freeman, always elegant at 73. Not to mention Borgnine, still McHale-esque at 93. Dreyfuss and Julian McMahon look good too. Malkovich remains unsettling, although he's unsettled lite here. They all hit their marks. Each enunciates clearly. No one overplays their already outlandish hand.
There is a plot. Machine gun shells pile up. Many things blow up. But if you've come to "Red" for anything but the cute old folks, you've fallen for a red herring.
Joe Tyrrell may be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
