I was on the fence - but optimistic! - about RED so I didn't run out last night to watch it. However, a good friend of the site did. You may know Gonzo from the comments section of The Big Lead or - very rarely - as an author at Major League Jerk. He sat through the whole movie and was good enough to write up a little review....Spoiler Are Ahead! You have been warned!
The start of the movie quickly shows Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) and his retired life. He wakes up everyday to a large nothingness of a house in a small town. There's a shot of the neighborhood full of picket fences with families containing 2.5 kids and a dog. The director feels it should only take 30 seconds or so to show you that Frank is just a regular guy. And he's very fucking bored with it. Except for Sara (Mary-Louise Parker). Sara works at the pension office. He tears up his check (Which is only $2300. If he was so good at his job, why is he being paid like a retired cubicle drone at the DMV?), just so he can call Sara and have a new one re-issued. He uses the few minutes he spends on the phone each month to hear her voice and ask about her life. Which he promptly uses to stalk the shit out of her (I guess it's cute when he does it, but I get slapped with restraining orders every 6 weeks).
I'm not sure how to characterize this movie. It tries to be an action film, but the scenes are way too familiar and predictable (Oh look, we're in trouble! Let me take one step to the left to avoid the bullets. Now I shoot you in the face). It tries to be a comedy, but the setups to the jokes have no pop, and the zingers didn't have enough zing to make me giggle, snicker, or even burp.
The characters all basically have the same composure and serenity like they are the best at what they do and have everything under control. From Bruce Willis to Karl Urban to Helen Mirren. The only personality I saw out of anyone was when Morgan Freeman flashed his trademark smile (Perhaps they filmed his scenes minutes after he bangs his grand-daughter) [ed.note: link?]. John Malcovich tries to be the kooky, paranoid guy. At first he seems funny. But after his second scene, that goes out the window and he's the second coming of John Maclane. Even Mary Louis Parker, who we first see as just a chick working a boring cubicle job, shows no fear when bullets and hand grenades are whooshing by her face. She is background noise at best.
In closing, this is a run in the mill action flick.Unfunny and uninteresting. With a boring plot and a predictable ending. There is no building of any character, and you pretty much forget that he's doing it all for the girl. When you see it on Encore in early 2011, pass it by and watch reruns of CSI Miami. If this movie were trying to be a beard, it would barely qualify as 5 o'clock shadow.
