Review: ‘Red’ Is Pretty Much A More Watchable ‘Expendables’ With A Better Cast (But Still Disappointing)

As you might have guessed from our coverage leading up to the film’s release, we were impressed with the trailers for “Red” and were holding out some hope that in a year populated with rag-tag-crew films like “The Losers,” “The A-Team” and “The Expendables” that disappointed, this would be the film that would be late-inning saving grace. Sadly, this is not the case. Based on the DC Comic and directed by Robert Schwentke, “Red” is essentially a more watchable version of “The Expendables” with a better cast, but plagued with the same narrative and tonal problems of Sylvester Stallone’s steroid and testosterone-heavy film.

The film starts off by introducing us to Frank Moses (Bruce Willis). Retired and pretty much bored by the routine of his post-career life, his only joy is a fledgling romance started over the phone with mousy Social Security telephone helpline administrator Sarah Moss (Mary-Louise Parker). Frank tears up his pension checks just to have an excuse to talk to Sarah and plans a trip to Kansas City where she works in order to try and finally meet her face to face. Aww. But, before he can probably pack his bags, a faceless group of armed gunmen attempt to kill him and destroy his home but not before Frank, whose senses from being an ex-CIA black ops agent are still in fine form, gets the drop of them first. Now aware that he’s a target — and that anyone he’s spoken to might be in danger — Frank races to Kansas City to get Sarah out of harm’s way. Obviously, she’s more than slightly unnerved that a man she only knows over the phone is suddenly in her apartment with a crazy story, but Frank ties her up and soon they’re hitting the road, determined to find out who is behind this and why he’s a target for assassination. To help him, Frank reconnects with his buddies from the old days, including the cancer-stricken Joe Matheson (Morgan Freeman), the paranoid Marvin Boggs (John Malkovich) and the killer-turned-Martha Stewart style homemaker Victoria (Helen Mirren).
And really, that’s the story and in a film like this, it’s about as simple as it needs be. Unfortunately, the script by Jon and Erich Hoeber makes the mistake of assuming the audience will actually care or be invested in the intricacies of just why Frank and his buddies are being put in the bullseye. So to service that end, the part of William Cooper (Karl Urban), the current CIA agent tasked with killing Frank and his cohorts, deviates from the strict bad guy role into a poorly drawn account of an agency foot solider who is questioning his loyalty. Rebecca Pidgeon seems like she walked in off the set of one of her husband David Mamet’s films, doing the frosty, ball-crushing bitch routine that seems to be the only parts she ever takes. Throw in the mix something or another about Guatemala and the vice president and you have the makings of some very tedious scenes of people explaining to each other who did what and when and why — all stuff that is particularly uninteresting, and gets in the way of stuff getting blowed up real good. This is a movie with James Remar for God’s sake. We’re not expecting “Inception” here; just give us a bad guy, some vague reasoning to drive the plot, leave it be, and let the very talented cast go wild. In short, we’re never given enough reason to care about the past transgressions of a fictional government that doesn’t come into the film until the very late stages of the story.
Which leads to the film’s other major issue: it’s not nearly as clever or as fun as it thinks it. For one, director Robert Schwentke is never really sure if he’s making an over the top explosion fest or comedic espionage tale and settles uneasily between the two. The first half of the film contains the most bonkers (and fun) set pieces (which are all pretty much given away in the trailers unfortunately) that are topped by a showdown between a handgun wielding Marvin and missile launcher armed bad guy. Somewhere along the way into the second half of the film, gone are the absurd villains and we get fairly boilerplate spy movie set ups; most of which don’t ignite the way we hope and are certainly a long way from being inventive or interesting. Is it cool to see Helen Mirren shooting a huge gun on tripod? Yeah, sure. It was neat in the trailer, mildly amusing in the movie but as that sequence went on it just become sort of boring. And while the cast has some fun playing against type, the real treat in the film? Mary-Louise Parker. She’s essentially a surrogate for the audience, at first in total disbelief at what she’s been thrown into and then sort of thrilled by it. Her turn is great and marked by some pitch perfect comedic facial expressions; someone needs to cast her in an outright comedy to see what she can do but she’s tops here. Judd Apatow, get her on the phone. Seriously.
Director Robert Schwentke got a lot of heat around him in the lead up to the film but after watching “Red,” it’s hard to see why. The action beats in the film are hardly memorable, the comedy gets a couple of smirks and guffaws here and there and that’s about it. The cast saves the film from being a total waste of time and there is some novelty to the film’s premise that helps keeps things moving, but it’s hardly enough. The pacing is nowhere close to that of Schwentke’s “Flightplan” at the nearly two hour running time is unforgivable given how often the film lags as each minute wears on. In the film, RED stands for Retired Extremely Dangerous but for audiences, they might be warned its also Red Extremely Dull. [C+]