Red (2010)

Despite the lakes of adrenaline action stars do get old eventually. This doesn’t prevent them from still making action movies though as we already saw earlier this year with The Expendables. Bruce Willis (55) already played a small part in it, but in action comedy Red he’s the star. The rest of the actors are not known for action movies, but Morgan Freeman (73!), John Malkovich (56) and Helen Mirren (65) show that they know how to handle weapons. Do these older actors still manage to make explosive action scenes or has their time come and should they start looking for retirement homes?

Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) was one of CIA’s best agents, but he has retired. All the excitement has disappeared and the type of choices he has to make are quite boring. Should he already put up the christmas ornaments because the neighbours already did so as well. The only excitement he does have are his conversation with call center agent Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker). He reads the books she does and Frank can’t wait to call her again and does so often.

His quiet life is violently changed when a specialised team attacks his house to murder him. Frank shows that he didn’t forget his training and uses his experience to quickly deal with his attackers. He decides to go see Sarah (who really isn’t sure whether or not she wants to meet him in person). When he appears in her house and kidnaps her, she’s not too excited about knowing him. When Frank explains why he did it she suddenly thinks it is all very exciting. Frank’s most important goal is to find out why they tried to kill him. He will need the help of some old friends (and enemies), who are also retired. They are all RED, Retired Extremely Dangerous.

The movie offers a constant stream of action in several cities (I really was surprised by the amount of locations that were used), there are no boring moments. If you are a big action fan (which I am) you will enjoy this film. It’s obvious the actors had a lot of fun making this movie. This movie clearly shows that older actors are still capable of making spectacular shootouts. My favorite actor in this movie is John Malkovich, playing a very paranoid man, which is the result of many tests that were performed on him. The way he approaches a woman at the airport is hilarious.

The only thing I did not like was the ending. It felt too sudden and unexpected. I was still enjoying the movie and was hoping it would be longer, so this might have something to do with it. I do think that Red is a better movie than The Expendables, with a lot more jokes and a better story (action wise the Expendables might beat it). So a great movie for the fans of action movies!

Score: 9