RED (2010)
Directed by Robert Schwentke
After surviving an assault from a squad of hit men, retired CIA black ops agent Frank Moses reassembles his old team for an all-out war. Frank reunites with old Joe, crazy Marvin and wily Victoria to uncover a massive conspiracy that threatens their lives. Only their expert training will allow them to survive a near-impossible mission -- breaking into CIA headquarters.
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23 films that influenced RED
What critics say influenced RED
Freeman is kind of on autopilot in an underwritten role and Malkovich seems to be channeling Jason Miller in The Ninth Configuration (1979), but there are certainly worse people and performances to channel.
The hip vibe and quirky characters seem less inspired by Sylvester Stallone than by Steven Soderbergh in his "Out of Sight" phase; the one-liners zing right along with the bullets in a playful pas de deux of mayhem, misdirection and mordant humor.
“Red” reminded me a bit of “Sneakers,” a 1992 caper with Robert Redford about a bunch of washed-up, written-off spooks who get together for a new job.
Based on the DC comic book of the same name, Red actually plays like a wink to Danny Glover’s classic line from the Lethal Weapon series: “I’m too old for this shit.”
Not since the Lethal Weapon series has an action film been this accessible.
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Schwentke aims for a John Woo-esque celebration of clever staging and stylish action, but we’re miles from “Hard Boiled” or “A Better Tomorrow” as sequences frequently have a falsely anarchic, been-there-done-that staleness about them (one in which Frank slides out of a spinning car, firing bullets without missing a beat is a brief exception).
You might have to go as far back 75 years to Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps, where gentleman antagonists Robert Donat and Sir Godfrey Tearle discussed luncheon details at the point of a gun.
We love Space Cowboys , an entertaining and rambunctious film directed by Clint Eastwood about a group of aging Air Force pilots who are recruited by NASA for a special mission.
“Space Cowboys” and “The Expendables” are two such examples of “old timers” showing they still have what it takes.
Red wants to fit into the same mold that cast Space Cowboys as kind of a geezer adventure where those past their prime are suddenly thrust back into action in a world that has left them for dead.
Schwentke aims for a John Woo-esque celebration of clever staging and stylish action, but we’re miles from “Hard Boiled” or “A Better Tomorrow” as sequences frequently have a falsely anarchic, been-there-done-that staleness about them (one in which Frank slides out of a spinning car, firing bullets without missing a beat is a brief exception).
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Parker’s role is a bit thankless, but fortunately she doesn’t spend the movie flailing clumsily like Jamie Lee Curtis in “True Lies.”
The whole thing has a sort of Ocean’s Eleven feel to it with a quarter of the slickness and none of the complex plan.
Think Ocean’s Eleven with lots of things that go boom.