a5c7b9f00b Frank Moses used to be CIA top agent but, now that he is retired, the secrets he knows make him a CIA target. He unites with ex-agents Joe, Marvin, and Victoria to use all their abilities to stay alive and stop the operation. They are labeled RED: Retired Extremely Dangerous, so an impossible mission is just another day at work Former CIA-Agent, Frank Moses (Bruce Willis), adjusts himself to retirement and even decorates his house for Christmas. He keeps on tearing up his checks as an excuse to keep on conversing with Sarah Ross, (Mary-Louise Parker) a Pension Department employee. Then one day, his residence is attacked by heavily-armed, masked assailants; he escapes but his house is destroyed. He meets with Sarah, abducts her, and convinces her that she in danger. He seeks the assistance of the Russians, and breaks-in the CIA HQ and finds his file is tagged as 'R.E.D'. (Retired Extremely Dangerous). He contacts his former associates: Joe, Marvin and Victoria, who join him with a plan that will pit them against security forces - especially when he announces their agenda is to kill VP Stanton (Julian McMahon). But then things get complicated after Sarah is apprehended and held for interrogation. Robert Schwentke's 'Red' is an average cinematic experience that fell short of my expectations. The reason? The mostly uninspiring Screenplay, that appeals in bits and pieces. Action scenes are good, so are some performances, but this box office hit lacks soul & the fast-paced energy one expects from it.<br/><br/>'Red' is about a yesterday team of CIA's agents gearing up, after an old rival decides to bump them off, as he feels they know a lot about him. Thus the seniors go, no holds barred, to get their nemesis down! <br/><br/>To give it's due, 'Red' does hold appeal. The problem is that, the writing in the first 20-25 minutes is very loose and doesn't engage. The film actually begins after John Malkovich's entry, and remains steady. But the climax, is a letdown. Robert Schwentke tries his best to rise above the disappointing screenplay with his able direction, while Florian Ballhaus's Cinematography carries a look. The Editing is just fine.<br/><br/>Performance-Wise: Bruce Willis gets the highest screen time, and he seems to be pipped up. Morgan Freeman doesn't get much to do, while Thespian Helen Mirren enjoys her part. John Malkovich is excellent. He truly steals the show. Mary-Louise Parker does a fair job. Brian Cox is hugely amusing. Karl Urban is very sincere. Richard Dreyfuss, after a long time, seems to be in command. Julian McMahon is wasted.<br/><br/>On the whole, 'Red' is half-baked, harmless entertainment, at best. Watch it, if you must! We shouldn't be surprised at the appearance of the geezer action genre. Simple market forces will change every genre and I suppose we will have young (very young) and old versions of most genres, just as we already have (and always have had?) in popular music. It is no surprise that the two latest experiments feature the two guys who are credited with inventing the summer blockbuster: Stallone and Willis. Also, because these are manufactured items designed by witless managers, it will be no surprise that they have as much value as a modern breakfast cereal.<br/><br/>But what is interesting is how the geezer genres will have to adapt certain rules of the genre. So many of those rules depend on the role of the babe. You know, the sexy young thing that gets rescued? Or the sexy young couple that is the first to go in a slasher film because they are being punished for showing us sex? <br/><br/>I went into this knowing that the chases would be chasey, the explosions nice and screenfilling orange, the bad guys the same we know. I knew the dialog would have the same, bankable flippant style. I knew where everything would be placed but the babe. What to do about the babe?<br/><br/>I consider this an experiment, and not the solution we can expect to see. But here's what they decided.<br/><br/>The traditional babe, the one that is simply along so that she can be protected by the strong man? She is played by the nearly 50 year old Mary-Louise Parker. Even in her youth and from the very beginning, her casting was exclusively in off-sex roles, roles that openly contradicted the babe stereotype. This was not in any conventional way, like Jennifer Jason Lee has covered. Just quirky and plain. Her plainness and lack of ordinary character is emphasized here. This, I think was so that they could shift the babe focus from the passive one to an active babe.<br/><br/>And who for that? The first one cast, Hellen Mirren. So far so good. Helen has built a career from the beginning (and she says, a life) based on open sexuality. Greenaway's "Cook, Thief" is how most of us remember her "middle age" sexuality. I suppose that when she was cast, the idea was to have her in a lusty comic relationship with Bruce. There is some remnant of this intent with a backstory about her affairs and one real love with a Russian spy. Her character is supposed to be the most ruthless and accomplished, her job description not being spy but assassin.<br/><br/>That would have been an interesting experiment. The woman knows how to project inclusive desire that transcends body shape. She is an intelligent enough actress to know how to bend the overt penile fascination with guns, and we do see a scene where that was clearly intended. But in the rewrites and tests and reshoots, the more adventuresome female juice was blotted away. There are some closeups of her face where the makeup is designed to emphasize wrinkles. Look closely at these scenes and you will see that the closeups are a later addition.<br/><br/>The scene where she shoots thousands of depleted uranium 50 caliber bullets like a frenzied bull? Well, her costume is very considered. I imagine there were scenes that were cut that allowed her to move that dress in notable ways. What is left however is a braless shape reminiscent of a demented baglady.<br/><br/>Strange. A strange experiment. I wonder what they will do next?<br/><br/>I saw this with an old guy whose only thrill was in recognizing the Swedish K, and in knowing that the variant shown in the movie "wasn't right."<br/><br/>Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life. It's an amusing geriatric uprising that might just as well be titled "Gray." Two aging black ops CIA agents Frank Moses (<a href="/name/nm0000246/">Bruce Willis</a>) and Marvin Boggs (<a href="/name/nm0000518/">John Malkovich</a>) discover that their names are on a RED (Retired, Extremely Dangerous) hit list because of a secret operation pulled years ago in the Central American country of Guatemala. Enlisting the help of former CIA operative Joe Matheson (<a href="/name/nm0000151/">Morgan Freeman</a>), ex-KGB agent Ivan Simonov (<a href="/name/nm0004051/">Brian Cox</a>), and retired MI6 sharpshooter Victoria (<a href="/name/nm0000545/">Helen Mirren</a>), they try to uncover their assailants and their reason for wanting to kill them with federal pension worker Sarah Ross (<a href="/name/nm0000571/">Mary-Louise Parker</a>) reluctantly tagging along. RED is based on a comic book written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by Cully Hamner. It was originally published by Homage Comics (an imprint of DC Comics) as a three-issues series from 2003 to '04. It was later collected into a single trade paperback that includes both "RED" and "Tokyo Storm Warning", another comic penned by Ellis. The comic was adapted for the movie by screenwriting brothe1rs Jon and Erich Hoeber. It was followed by a sequel, <a href="/title/tt1821694/">RED 2 (2013)</a> (2013). He knew that Library of Congress numbers start with letters, whereas many municipal libraries use the Dewey system, which is generally a decimal number followed by the Cutter number, which generally starts with the first letter of the author's name. Frank recognizes the number on the postcard as being in the Harvard-Yenching cataloging system used for cataloging Asian books. Stuck in the book with that call number is the list of people who were on the Guatemala mission, most of whom are now dead. The term "wet" comes from the Russian expression mokroye delo, meaning "wet job". It is a spy slang euphemism for murder or assassination and refers to the spilling of blood. KGB and CIA agents who function as assassins may be referred to as "wet boys" performing "wet work" as opposed to "dry work" like intelligence gathering. Why Marvin added "like peaches" to the term is most likely an allusion to the fact that it is difficult to eat a ripe peach without getting yourself all wet. What he was definitely alluding to is his contention that the helicopter circling over his house held assassins who were looking to kill him. Their own ex-employers, the CIA. From agent Gabriel Singer (<a href="/name/nm0001664/">James Remar</a>), they learn that the Guatemalan mission involved extracting a person from a village and that everybody on the hit list has been killed to silence them. From shady arms merchandizer Alexander Dunning (<a href="/name/nm0000377/">Richard Dreyfuss</a>), they further learn that the mission was to extract the now-Vice President Robert Stanton (<a href="/name/nm0573037/">Julian McMahon</a>) who, at the time, was a young lieutenant who wigged out and massacred the villagers. Dunning also attests that Stanton is the one trying to erase all the loose ends. Frank calls CIA agent William Cooper (<a href="/name/nm0881631/">Karl Urban</a>) and tells him to bring Sarah to him at the Evanston Power Plant in 15 minutes or will kill the Vice President. Cooper arrives alone, but a limo drives up a few minutes later carrying Sarah, Cooper's superior Cynthia Wilkes (<a href="/name/nm0682071/">Rebecca Pidgeon</a>), Alexander Dunning (<a href="/name/nm0000377/">Richard Dreyfuss</a>), and several thugs. While Cynthia holds Sarah at gunpoint, Dunning shoots the Vice President, then orders Cooper to cuff Frank and kill both him and Sarah. The plan is to say that Frank shot Stanton, then Cooper shot Frank and Sarah. In return, Cooper will be made head of the CIA. Dunning explains that he is really the mastermind of the assassinations and that he's just using the CIA to carry out the work. Cooper cuffs Frank as ordered but stuffs the key in his hand. When Frank starts walking toward Sarah, Cynthia points her gun at him, but Cooper shoots Cynthia. Frank applies a crushing blow to Dunning's larynx, after which he hugs Sarah as Victoria, Marvin, and Ivan arrive, taking out Dunning's thugs. The five of them depart together, leaving Cooper to handle the Vice President (who is still alive). Later, in the car, Marvin says he has a feeling that something terrible is going to happen, but Frank says that it can't be that bad because, for the first time, no one is following and trying to kill them. Ivan then reminds Frank of a favor he is owed and asks for his help with "a small nuclear problem" in Moldova. In the final scene, Marvin and Frank are racing through a Moldovan field, Frank pushing a wheelbarrow containing a nuclear warhead and Marvin wearing a dress, both being shot at by the Moldovan army. "Next time," Marvin yells, "your girlfriend can wear the dress!"