Film Review: Red

Red. Rated M (Action violence and infrequent coarse language). 111 minutes. Directed by Robert Schwentke. Screenplay by Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber. Based on the graphic novel by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner.

Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is a retired ‘black-ops’ (covert operations) CIA Agent, living alone in peaceful, if relatively boring, seclusion. He passes the time by flirting on the telephone with Sarah Ross (Mary-Louise Parker) who works in the agency’s Kansas City-based pension department. When Frank’s life is interrupted by the arrival of a hit-squad of assassins, he realises that he has become a target – and after kidnapping Ms Ross for her own safety, reassembles his crack team of retired colleagues to take on the CIA at their own game.

Much like playing Solitaire on your computer, Red has its moments of distracting charm. John Malkovich (Burn After Reading), Helen Mirren (The Queen) and Morgan Freeman (Invictus) as Frank’s colleagues bring a certain megawattage of star power to the proceedings – even if they mostly appear to be simply going through their paces, while William Cooper (as über-baddie CIA operative Karl Urban) does a mean line in vein-popping frustration. Ms Parker (perhaps best-known for her work in the television series Weeds), is totally engaging as the wide-eyed, stunned and amazed Sarah who gradually begins to relish the unpredictable excitement these dedicated has-beens have brought into her previously tedious life.

But in spite of the glittering cast (which also includes Richard Dreyfuss, Brian Cox and 93-year-old Ernest Borgnine) and lots of good intentions, the end result is a film that absolutely fails to equal the sum of its parts. Mr Willis (who has done some brilliant work over the years including the Die Hard franchise, Hostage, The Sixth Sense, The Fifth Element and the unforgettable Moonlighting), never gets anything to really sink his teeth into and is, like the rest of the cast, acted off the screen by Mr Malkovich’s marvellously paranoid and deluded ‘Marvin’. Apart from lacking any sense of originality, the Hoebers’ muddled but occasionally humourous script doesn’t stand up to too much interrogation – which is probably just as well because Mr Schwentke’s join-the-dots direction doesn’t ask very much of it. Sadly, it all ends up feeling a little more like Try Hard than Die Hard.

Pictured: Bruce Willis having a "how the hell did it all go so horribly wrong" moment in Red.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.