Red (2010)

Directed by: Robert Schwentke

Starring: Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Hellen Mirren, Mary-Louise Parker

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The film industry is lucky  Red came out  shortly after The Expendables. (Read  my review of that train wreck here) If it had not, I might have given up on going to the movies all together. Red managed to redeem the film industry of The Expendables' mistakes, and made me believe in campy-throw-back action movies again.

This is how douchebags say "thank you". 

RED is actually an acronym; Retired, Extremely Dangerous. Bruce Willis stars in the lead role as a retired black-ops CIA super spy. He lives in boredom and mediocrity, with the only joy he gets coming from telephone conversations with a woman who works in a pension office. Rather quickly , his is attacked at home by a band of government thugs. After kicking a few asses and taking a few names, he leaves to find out why the government he worked for is now trying to kill him. Along the way, he pulls a few of his old counterparts out of retirement.

The story isn't horribly original, and it can get pretty confusing, especially in the third act. Red makes up for the weak story line with lots of awesome characters. Of course, Willis is the usual wise cracking badass. Nothing new for him here, but he's good at it. Mary-Louise Parker gets a few good laughs as his reluctant love intrest. Morgan freeman and Helen Mirren are great as another two ex-agents pulled out of retirement.  Karl Urban does very well as the initially cold and calculating government agent sent to stop the REDs, whatever the cost. Out of all of this, my favorite character was played by John Malkovich. He is a mentally disturbed ex-operative, mostly due to the fact that he was fed LSD daily for 11 years when he worked for the CIA.

Seems perfectly stable to me...

Bottom Line: 8/10: Red has its flaws, mostly in the story department. But it sure as hell is fun, with plenty of campy action and fun characters to go around. If you're into action films, don't let this one slip past you. Even if  you thought The Expendables had ruined the gene for you.