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.
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.
“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.
Freaky paranoid Marvin (John Malkovich) is hiding out heavily armed in the Florida swamps, like a more amped-up version of Mel Gibson in Conspiracy Theory.
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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).
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.
Parker’s role is a bit thankless, but fortunately she doesn’t spend the movie flailing clumsily like Jamie Lee Curtis in “True Lies.”
It's hard to keep an accurate count since the allegedly ruthless ex-spies decided about halfway through to go all Terminator 2 and avoid killing anybody.
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Schwentke has assembled the kind of movie that, like "Romancing the Stone" 26 years earlier, challenges cynicism and aspires to nothing more than making an audience smile.
Directed by Robert Schwentke (Flightplan, The Time Traveler's Wife), Red has the cool, swaggering vibe of an action movie where the actors and the audience know that nothing is really on the line.
But despite that and a winning concept — that somebody, maybe in government, is trying to kill off aged, retired CIA assassins — director Robert “Flightplan” Schwentke never lets this one achieve takeoff.
The action-comedy genre isn't easy (just look at "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" for a recent failure) and it's a credit to the writers and director Robert Schwentke ("Flightplan") that they nail (and sustain) the tone throughout (of course, when you've got Helen Mirren behind a mounted machine gun how can you fail?).
Director Robert Schwentke (“Flightplan,” “The Time Traveler’s Wife”) favors smooth, stylized action over gritty, graphic violence, and he stages some cheerfully over-the-top scenarios.
But unlike the similarly star-stuffed “Oceans” series, director Robert Schwentke (“Flightplan”) never allows his crisply plotted film, loosely based on a graphic novel by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner, to descend into an out-of-control actors’ frat party.
The director here is Robert Schwentke, who did the mediocre The Time Traveler’s Wife and the more involving Flightplan.
Directed by Robert Schwentke (Flightplan, The Time Traveler's Wife), Red has the cool, swaggering vibe of an action movie where the actors and the audience know that nothing is really on the line.
Perhaps inspired by their performances, Schwentke — undistinguished in his previous film, The Time Traveler's Wife — springs his gags with an abrupt, exacting cut or a crisp, revelatory pan.
Director Robert Schwentke (“Flightplan,” “The Time Traveler’s Wife”) favors smooth, stylized action over gritty, graphic violence, and he stages some cheerfully over-the-top scenarios.
Based on a graphic novel, director Robert Schwentke ("The Time Traveler's Wife") delivers a visually explosive film that leaves little time to catch your breath.
But Robert Schwentke, shaking off the sentimental blahs that plagued The Time Traveler's Wife , directs as though he's relieved to just get outside and play.
The director here is Robert Schwentke, who did the mediocre The Time Traveler’s Wife and the more involving Flightplan.