Red is the story of Frank Moses, a former CIA Black-Ops agent who after being retired from the service now finds himself the target of an assassination and to make it all worse Moses’ love interest, Sarah, a customer service rep is also being targeted. Retirement is not all it’s cracked up to be for Frank after all what is a man who was paid to kill and kill well supposed to do with himself after he is forced to take early leave? His days are spent moping around the house, waiting for the post and calling Sarah, the rep for a finance company who he has grown fond of!
After a hit squad attempts to take him down Frank realises that he will have to step into his old boots and find out just who wants him dead and why but unfortunately that means the innocent Sarah gets dragged into his world.
Unable to go it alone, Frank must draft some of his former friends and even some enemies if he is going to uncover the plot, tackle the CIA’s new blood and manage to impress the woman of his dreams!
The movie is packed with enough action to keep fans of explosions and big guns happy, the story is intriguing and edgy enough to keep fans of plot guessing and if like us you are fans of character development then you are not going to be disappointed. Performances in the movie are on track and in particular we have to draw attention to Sarah Louise Parker, as the unfortunate love interest of Willis character Frank Moses. Her goofy and charming performance had us hooked from the start but it’s not enough to overshadow her co-stars, Helen Mirren, Bruce Willis, John Malkovich and Morgan Freeman.
Directed by Robert Schwenke (The Time Traveller’s Wife) and written by Jon and Erich Hoeber, RED stands up as a film that doesn’t take itself too seriously while still delivering nearly two hours of fantastic performances, brilliant shoot outs and a decent story.
Now, when we said the film was loosely based on the three part miniseries of the same name we meant. The film RED is more of an action flick with strong elements of black humour while the work of the comic writer and artist, Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner is more of a dark and sordid read. The film still maintains some aspects of the comic but for the most part fans of the series will find themselves watching a completely different story unfold over the course of the movie.
This is not a bad thing, the comic series was only three issues long and so it needed to be fleshed out and stretched into a feature length movie, something that the scriptwriters managed to accomplish rather well. Considering how bad some movie/comic crossovers have been (Daredevil, Elektra, The Punisher) reworking the RED comics into a movie could have been a risky and ultimately bad decision but not in this case.
There are a few problems with the movie, Julian McMahon’s performance as the Vice President and sudden appearance in the movie shocked and disappointed us as ultimately he lends nothing to the movie. The final thirty minutes of the film feel altogether rushed and while we understand the pace of a movie will change with more dramatic scenes, in terms of the storyline it just seems like the filmmakers themselves realised they were fast running out of time and in a rush slapped it together.
However in spite of this the movie holds strong and we would be more than happy to watch the movie another few times!
The RED Blu-Ray comes with special features including, deleted and extended scenes, cast insights, ‘CIA Exposed’ and an audio commentary from a former CIA field officer.
If you are looking for something to entertain you for the night then you need to check out RED, with plenty of bullets flying, snappy comebacks, laughs, this film is not one to disappoint any action movie fan!
Oh and for the record… there is officially nothing as sexy as Helen Mirren sporting a sniper rifle or any gun for that matter!
Helen Mirren for the next Bond Girl!
