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Friday, March 18, 2011

Task 37 - "Red" Movie Review

(37) Watch 26 Movies (4/26)

Movie: Red
Rating: 4-Stars

Retired Extremely Dangerous or RED is the status given to an ex-CIA wetworks operative (CIA Hitmen) named Frank Moses (Bruce Willis).  The movie starts off with a lonely Frank living a solitary existence who finds excuses to call Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), who mans the Government pension hotline. After a small well armed group of killers try to take him out he discovers his past has come back to bite him in the ass.  Realizing that he isn’t the only target he kidnaps his love interest Sarah to protect her from certain death by association. With nowhere to go he seeks the assistance of his fellow retirees to uncover why he has become so popular.  The happy-go-lucky Joe (Morgan Freeman), the paranoid Marvin (John Malkovich), and the classy British dame Victoria (Helen Mirren) are more than happy to help.

The team soon realizes that the order to take Frank out comes from someone high up and the only way to discover who is to work his way through the CIA. Ordered to kill him company man William Cooper (Karl Urban) is essentially a younger version of Frank.  Cooper is happy to do his job and honor his country until he realizes he may be chasing the wrong bad guys. Of course until he comes to this realization that he is part of a high-level conspiracy he chases Frank like a cat and mouse using every resource he has to find Frank and finish his job.

The out-gunned retirees quickly make good in using their maturity and experience at disposing of everything tossed at them without much trouble while discovering that it was war crimes in Guatemala committed by a fictional vice president that has made them targets.

The plot of the movie is predictable and fairly generic and it isn’t new to have Bruce Willis running around having gun battles in the streets of New Orleans but the inclusion of Helen Mirren manning a high caliber machine gun and John Malkovich as an LSD-overdosed uber Paranoid ex-spy steals the show. It’s evident from the start that this action-romance-comedy is also an old timers on the war path seeking payback and excitement with the inclusion of Morgan Freeman. The movie would be a disappointment if you went into it thinking or expecting it to be anything else but an action packed funny love story for the more mature crowd. 

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