RED - Still A Little Coal Left In The Furnace

Jan

2

RED - Still A Little Coal Left In The Furnace

≡ Category: Action, Comedy, Mainstream, Recommended, United States |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

Country: United States
Genre: Action/ Comedy/ Mainstream
Director: Robert Schwentke
Year: 2010

Rating:

TRASH CINEMA RECOMMENDED MOVIE

I have to admit, I wasn’t too eager to see RED, which seeks to mine yucks out of the prospect of a bunch of old geezers being action heroes, but it was better than I expected.

Now, if director Robert Schwentke and writers Jon and Erich Hoeber had wanted to make a truly great flick, they would have approached the premise with the punk fury of Robocop, but that is an approach fraught with peril, requiring a nosebleed high level of craft and talent.

Instead, the filmmakers take the easier road. RED is a shambling, shaggy dog story. There’s little attempt at the hurtling velocity of a thriller. Instead RED revels in the tongue in cheek spectacle of senior citizens besting young whippersnappers.

That could have been deadly boring, but director Robert Schwentke does us the favor of not slacking off on key genre elements. At one point, several bodies are blown to smithereens. Another director would have made those effects cheesy, which would signaled an attempt at a postmodern sensibility, contempt for the audience, or possibly both. Instead, the effects are believable but not so bloody that they would make the audience uncomfortable during what is essentially a comedy.

At another point, Schwentke stages a fight between Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) and a much younger CIA agent, William Cooper (Karl Urban). The action has a real edge, as do the makeup effects that illustrate the resulting carnage.

Third, the screenwriters allow a little real world ugliness into the screenplay. When we first meet Agent William Cooper, he is putting the forensic touches on a hit disguised as a suicide. After Frank Moses wipes out an assassination squad sent to ice him, he cuts off their fingers so he can ID the hitters.

So, even though the adventures of the retired agents have a certain Bob Hope road movie quality to them, they’re grounded in grimy genre conventions. It’s an agreeable mix.

It helps that director Schwentke has a killer cast to work with. As the CIA agent assigned to hunt down the oldsters, Karl Urban is both frightening and amusing in his dead-eyed way. That’s a tricky balance to pull off. As you would expect, Helen Mirren and Morgan Freeman ooze charisma. John Malcovich is reliably wacky as a paranoid ex-agent who was a part of an LSD experiment back in the day.

The last aspect of RED that deserves mention is the music score. Using old funk tunes as a backdrop for the derring do of our senior citizens was a stroke of genius. First off, it’s just plain funny. Second, these old tunes have a vitality that beat the pants off of modern R&B, just like our heroes beat the crap out of the modern soulless agents who have been sent to eliminate them.

Like I said at the beginning of this review, RED may not be a masterpiece, but it won’t make your eyes glaze over with boredom either. So, if your girlfriend wants to see it, say “Okay, but I get to pick the next one.” You can smirk when she’s not looking. Thank me later.