There's a trite quote you can read in barber shops attributed to Abraham Lincoln, you know the one, about pleasing some of the people some of the time, but not all the people all of the time? Robert Schwentke and the producers of Red obviously don't buy that. Red, while hardly a masterpiece, is that most rare of objects, a movie that a divergent group of friends can settle on and no one will have any room to gripe. It is here to entertain us, all of us, and does a good job of it. Anyone who comes away focusing on the things that don't quite add up rather than the moments of giddy joy clearly needs to reevaluate their philosophy of life.
Red may seem like a Bruce Willis vehicle, but the lead is actually Mary-Louise Parker, a bored, lonely woman who gets swept up into the world of international espionage in classic Romancing The Stone fashion, upping the adorable ante from Cameron Diaz in this summer's similar Knight and Day.
Whereas that film focused on a developing interpersonal relationship, Red, for better or worse, keeps its eyes on the flash. There are guns, costumes, stolen identity cards and lots of terrific actors having an awful lot of fun being badass.
Red stays so fleet of foot that there is hardly a moment to notice, despite the vastness of the uncovered conspiracy, there is absolutely nothing at stake for any of the characters. Strutting around with their heavy artillery to funk beats makes them all too cool for consequences and, somewhat surprisingly, the film does not suffer.
The action sequences are all good, though not marvelous and, frankly, the writing is mostly perfunctory (not enough zingers!). So why, you are asking, am I giving this movie as high a grade as I am? It's the performances. Director Schwentke and his cast have taken some decent enough source material and polished it into a small gem. Parker, Willis, Malkovich, Freeman, Karl Urban, Brian Cox, Richard Dreyfus(!), Ernest Borgnine(!!) and Rebecca Pidgeon all hit it out of the park. And I didn't even get to Helen Mirren yet.
So, go see Red. Take your buddies or your girlfriend or your parents. Pretty much everyone will come away with a smile.
