[6]

Jean-Luc Godard once said, “All you need for a movie is a girl and a gun.” Watching Helen Mirren seize comand of a blazing Gatling gun, I think Godard may be onto something. RED isn’t terribly original or surprising, but its venerable cast rescues it from mediocrity. Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, and Mirren play retired CIA agents who return to their old habits when assassination attempts are made against them. While working to discover their attacker’s identity, they pick up a goofy phone operator played by Mary-Louise Parker and a charming old Russian adversary played by Brian Cox. Meanwhile, a promising young operative (Karl Urban) leads the charge to thwart them. Richard Dreyfuss and Ernest Borgnine pop up in supporting roles.

I mention the entire cast, because it’s a damned impressive roster. I don’t often think stars can single-handedly make a movie work, but it’s true in this case. Each is playing to their well-established strengths — Malkovich is crazy, Dreyfuss is smarmy, Willis is heroic, and Parker is actually high in one scene. So your knowledge of the actors’ past roles suffices for character development. This allows RED to hit the ground running with a bunch of old familiar personalities. It’s a somewhat cheap and unsophisticated approach, but it’s a good time, and worth the price of admission.