RED, the new comedy thriller starring Bruce Willis, is the forth movie this year to feature a disgraced mercenary unit out to clear their name (following The A-Team, The Expendables and The Losers). While it might not be that original...it is pretty good fun. You know it's fun 'cause Bruce Willis is having fun. And not that Cop Out or The Whole None Yards kind of (phoning it in) fun. No Bruce is charming, quirky, inspired and comically charismatic in RED, and that's always worth watching.
The cast, including Morgan Freeman are all solid, but thankfully for us there's some surprises. John Malkovich steals the show as a paranoid ex-CIA operative that was force-fed too much LSD, Mary Louise-Parker is engagingly scatty as the group's outsider, Karl Urban kicks arse as the bloke hunting them down while Richard Dreyfus, Ernest Borgnine (yes, he's still working!), Brian Cox and James Remar have cool cameos.
Director Robert (Flightplan) Schwentke instils an offbeat Oceans Eleven vibe that provides some smirksome humour...plus it has a John Landis sensibility on occasion with some subtle, well timed gags in amongst the mayhem. Less an action movie, more a comedy, wrapped in thriller's clothing...RED is to be recommended. The penultimate act is a little slow and serious and the tone isn't as consistent as Soderberg's caper trilogy, but it's a step up in terms of wit and intelligence from The A-Team movie.
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