Red

(2010)

Dir: Robert Scwentke

It’s amazing. Sylvester Stallone’s bombastic The Expendables is actually less sinister than Robert Schwentke’s light-hearted action caper about another group of geriatric super assassins. This is mainly down to the relationship between Bruce Willis’ typically monosyllabic Frank Moses and his girlfriend cum hostage cum therapist cum pension distributor Mary-Louise Parker. The actors might not be that different in age, but boy do they look it on screen. Their burgeoning romance just comes across as, well, creepy.

It starts off amusingly enough, as Moses is kidnaps this woman in order to save her from assassins. It soon gets rather icky. Icky in the ‘Dad ogling your sister’s friends’ kind of way. Even Stallone resists romance with a younger, nubile babe in The Expendables. Oh Bruce, you horny old dog.

The Expendables is actually quite a good comparison for Red. Two more films about betrayed mercenaries to toss onto the roaring infernos of 2010 along with The Losers and The A-Team. Red, with a cast including heavyweights such as Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Brian Cox and Helen Mirren, has the potential to trump them all, but fails to do so. It’s mostly a Bruce Willis rom-com, with Morgan Freemen popping up to die every now and then. Seriously, that’s all he does. Several times. At least Malkovich and Mirren provide some fun, although Brian Cox’s stereotypical, vodka-swilling Russian spy is a little too much.

It’s not a terrible film by any means, and it does have its fun elements. Karl Urban’s villainous Agent Cooper gets a wonderfully chilling introduction and has tremendous antagonistic potential, but is ultimately wasted in favour of a frankly baffling plot involving the Vice-President. Like its leads’ knees, Red creeks and groans its way along, before finally leaving you in satisfied doze.

** ½ / *****

“One foot in the grave.”