Red

2010 geriatric action film

Rating: 11/20

Plot: Frank is retired and extremely dangerous. RED! He lives a boring little domestic life, the highlight being when he gets to flirt with Sarah over the phone when he makes calls to the government pension people about his checks. Life's boring until one A.M. when some people show up to kill him. He picks up Sarah in Kansas City and then rounds up some old old friends to help him figure out who is behind the attempt on his life.

How do you make yourselves a serious stack of dough in Hollywood? Do what the makers of Red did and just hire a bunch of big-name actors--action superstar Bruce Willis, Mr. Cool (and black) Morgan Freeman, the always-fascinating John Malkovich, the currently hotter-than-hot Helen Mirren--add a pile of explosions and gunfights, throw in a little romance with cute-as-a-button Mary-Louise Parker, and watch the magic happen. I guess the hook is that they're a bunch of old farts, and watching a bunch of old farts kick ass is a hoot. The characters have such a lack of depth, and their story seems derivative and tired. Improbable gun battles, some lazy dialogue, and a plot constructed from cut-and-pasted cliches. Throwing in any amount of Morgan Freeman acting like a badass doesn't wash all that away. Some of the action sequences are beyond stupid. As with a lot of these dumb action movies, none of the bad guys can shoot very well at all. There's a scene with Malkovich's character shooting a bullet at a missile thing that doesn't make any sense, and another slow-mo step from a spinning crashed car that I think made my wife ultimately decide to give up on this one. I did almost like Malkovich's character. He plays psychotic and paranoid very well, but his Marvin becomes less interesting as the movie goes on. Don't tell my wife, but I have the hots for Mary-Louise Parker. And don't you worry. I can type that here because she only skims this crap. Parker's "straight man" character here is nothing more than an annoying distraction though. It's my wife who skims this crap, by the way. As far as I know, Mary-Louise Parker has never visited this blog. That's about as likely as. . .oh, I don't know. Bruce Willis's character surviving this movie?