Review: RED Is John Wick With Old People.
- Mar 4, 2017
- 2 min read
Bruce Willis has been playing an old man for almost a decade now and, strangely enough, that's because he is an old man. Whether he's John McClane or attempting some other "badass" character, he always comes off tired and bored. RED takes this and turns it into one of the better action comedies of the past few years.
Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is living a quiet retired life, all alone except for his phone conversations with Sarah Ross (Mary-Louise Parker), his case worker for pension services. But after a hit team attacks his house, Frank must gather his old team for one last mission.
RED has two things going for it. One, it's stylised to a ridiculous level, so much so it often looks as if it was torn from the pages of a comic, which it was. Two, it embraces the ridiculous nature of it's source material, all the way down to the senile actions of many of the characters.
And what character's they are. Frank is basically every Bruce Willis action hero ever but not pretending to be young and spritely anymore. Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren and Brian Cox round out the rest of the team, each of which are distinct in their own manner, ranging from psychotic to cold and calculated. Karl Urban plays the main antagonist and is suitably entertaining as a trained CIA agent baffled by the proficiency of his elderly adversaries.
The action is pretty solid, featuring shootouts that focus more on style over substance with a large portion of them portraying more chaotic scenarios than the carefully calculated action scenes we see today.
All in, RED is undeniably entertaining and, while it isn't perfect and the plot leaves more than a little to be desired, it's so tied up within it's own crazy world that it draws you in for the ride, one that keeps going until the credits roll and will keep you hooked the whole way through.
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