Red
Spy spoofs are among the toughest type of movies to pull off, as in the right hands with good writing, they can be nothing short of brilliant (the first Austin Powers) or they can turn out to be cornball displays of excess (the Matt Helm films). This one falls somewhere in the middle. Bruce Willis plays a retired hit man for the CIA living a quiet life in a suburban neighborhood when one day a whole assassin team shows up out of nowhere to take him out, only for the opposite to happen. Problem is, he’s developed an attraction to his over the phone pensions caseworker (Mary-Louise Parker), a hot but lonely middle aged woman bored with her life, having told her that he plans to head out her way and hook up with her. Willis surmises that this will make her a target, so he goes to her house, kidnaps her, and takes her on the run with him while looking up the other members of his team to try to warn them as well. That’s the first snafu in the mix it turns out, as the movie seems to be going in the Knight And Day direction of an ordinary woman having her life turned upside down by a mystery man she holds an attraction to, but that soon gets diluted by the REAL premise (what the movie was sold on), that being an all-star romp with a slew of big stars playing shadowy characters from the CIA that seem at times to come in and out of the film to keep the story moving as Bruce tries to figure out who’s trying to kill them and why, and the Willis / Parker romance angle gets completely lost in the mix. Of course, that’s not withstanding that Willis and Parker don’t exactly burn up the screen with any genuine chemistry, perhaps because Bruce looks to be in his early to mid fifties while Parker (in her forties) actually looks so great she could easily be mistaken for early thirties. In 20/20 hindsight, their relationship could handily have been left out of the film entirely in favor of the big picture, but at least it gives Willis a goofy sidekick of sorts, even as it exemplifies perhaps the movie’s biggest theme, of how someone such as a CIA operative can put aside their cold-blooded nature in the name of the feelings they may actually have for another human being in their heart. As for the other big roles, we have Morgan Freeman as an ex hitman now living in a retirement home who decides to help out (though despite his second billing, his role is actually a lot smaller than one would have thought); Helen Mirren as a former MI6 agent now living in a lavish home cooking and gardening but still itching to kill someone again; Karl Urban as the younger assassin called in to oversee the operations to dispose of the aging killers, even as he has a wife and kids of his own that can be used against him; Ernest Borgnine in a delightful little cameo as the official CIA records keeper; James Remar as another old member of the team who doesn’t last too long; Brian Cox as an old Russian operative who still pines for his past romance with the Mirren character (and no offense to Mr. Cox, but given the very large nature of his screen time, perhaps a somewhat bigger name actor would have sufficed); and Richard Dreyfuss as a crusty old arms dealer with important information. All of them are good, but it is John Malkovich who gets the showiest role of all, that of another old operative (of course) whose brains are completely scrambled due to the government (we are told) having once given him daily doses of LSD for 11 years straight, leaving him in what best can be described as the ultimate state of paranoia, always nattering on crazily about any little move they make and how it will tip off the government as to their whereabouts, and Malkovich tries really hard to make his role more entertaining than the rest of the movie itself, and quite nearly succeeds, even as he merely stands in the background of some shots with a kooked out look on his face. The script tries to offer as many twists and turns as it can hold, but ultimately becomes predictable in a way that can best be described as very cute but nonetheless quite trite. Most, if not all of the performances are quite serviceable though, and the action bits get quite kinetic, even if the boundaries of a PG-13 rating keep it from realizing its full potential. As for the climax that involves our heroes meeting up with the BigBad behind it all, things kind of fizzle a bit from our expectations storywise, but the charm of the actors still helps out immensely. Overall, while a movie that doesn’t quite live up to its promise, one that possibly could be a pretty good franchise if the next upcoming sequel is written a little better…
7/10