Red 2

First Hit:  Tongue in cheek fun, watchable and entertaining.

During the cold war Bailey (Anthony Hopkins) created a nuclear device, which was hidden in the Kremlin. He is also the only one alive that may know where the device was hidden.

The issue is that he's been lock up in a semi-insane asylum/prison. A team of retired black-ops people is reunited get him released and track down this bomb and return it to the US. This team, led by Frank Moses (Bruce Willis), is cobbled together and includes an aging Marvin Boggs (John Malkovich) and Victoria (Helen Mirren).

In a tangential way the team also includes Han Cho Bai (Byung-hun Lee) and Frank’s wife Sarah Ross (Mary-Louise Parker). Frank is in love with Sarah and spends a lot of film time trying to protect her. However, Sarah is up for adventure, and is quirky enough in character to make her role very fun.

Trying to subvert the team is Katja (Catherine Zeta-Jones) who wants the bomb as well. What everyone doesn’t know is that Baily is not crazy, just a man on a mission to make right a wrong he thought was done to him.

The actors here appear to have had fun in their roles and there is always a sense that there was a slight wink and an nod as they did their scenes together.

Hopkins is the most brilliant in his role as he switches from off his rocker to singularly focused to right a personal wrong. Willis is always a bit tongue in cheek and here he’s in his swim lane. Malkovich is great as the sidekick that is always one hair away from being off his rocker. Mirren is fabulous as the unsuspecting older refined woman that has a "take no prisoners attitude". Parker is sublime as the quirky wife looking for adventure in her life and marriage. Zeta-Jones hams it up and is in her glory. Lee is really good as the guy who switches sides for just a moment to gets what he wants. Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber wrote a fun and entertaining script. Dean Parisot married the actors and script in a way that made all this work well. 

Overall:  This is a fun film but don’t look for everything to hold together, it wasn’t meant to.

RED

First Hit: A silly fun film which showed off the quirkiness of some great actors.

I like films like RED which are a farce but reasonably put together enough to make it fun. I like when the implausible is made plausible enough so that I can sit back and just go for the ride. RED is one such film.

Is any of it plausible? No, but that isn’t the point. The point is to create enough of a plot with some writing which fit the actors range, yet move them enough outside their norm to make it enjoyable.

Frank Moses (played by Bruce Willis) is a retired CIA spook who, years ago, happened to be on a mission in Guatemala where the current Vice President got himself skewed by giving favors to a corporate executive named Alexander Dunning (played by Richard Dreyfuss).

The story begins to leak and a reporter is killed as are others who were on the mission. Moses was on the mission and is now being hunted. He innocently gets hooked up with a Social Security Claims associate named Sarah Ross (played by Mary-Louise Parker) because he likes the sound of her voice over the phone but meeting Moses means she is hunted as well.

To get out of this mess Moses finds others who were on the same mission in Guatemala to warm them that a CIA operative is out to kill them because they know the Vice President’s past. There is Joe Matheson (played by Morgan Freeman) who is dying of cancer, has nothing else to live for and thinks stopping these useless deaths is important.

Then there is Marvin Boggs (played by John Malkovich) who is paranoid, thinks the government is always after him and may mistakenly think a particular person is out to kill him but is often times right. These people are joined by Victoria (played by Helen Mirren) who is steely eyed and ready to kill someone at the drop of a hat (just to keep her finger in the pie).

All these older CIA covert operations people (RED Retired Extremely Dangerous) are out to expose the truth because if they don’t the current CIA will kill them.

Willis is great with his typical sarcastic wit conjuring up a way to resolve the crisis he finds himself. Dreyfuss is fine as the man behind the scenes with money and the stings which are pulling on the VP and soon to be President. Parker is a perfect fit as the girl living in Kansas City who’s never seen or done anything in her life as she gets pulled into the espionage mess and enjoys the change of life. Freeman is perfect as the sound thinker and always ready to do the right thing for the team even if it means pulling a trigger or being on the other end of the bullet. Malkovich is perfect as the right on the edge guy who spent many of his early years in the Army’s LSD program. Mirren was funny in her out of character role firing machine guns and wasting other’s lives. For fun Ernest Borgnine the CIA deep dark records keeper is a joy to see again. Jon and Eric Hoeber wrote this in a funny tongue-in-cheek sort of way while Robert Schwentke made the best of his actors and a tight script that moved things along in a silly funny sort of way.

Overall: It was a romp, easy to watch, predictable and engaging.