Review of RED

RED

FRANK MOSES (played by Bruce Willis) is a lonely, harmless looking retiree who tears up his monthly checks to have an excuse to talk with SARAH ROSS, a pleasant agent at the pension office.  But Frank is not your typical pensioner. When hit squad attacks his house and tries to kill him, we see that Frank is actually an ex-CIA special ops agent classified as RED - RETIRED, EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. He kills the hit-men and, realizing that his talks with Sarah have put her in danger, finds her and--well--kidnaps her because she thinks he's nuts and fights him off. Luckily, she soon realizes he really is trying to save her life, and the two of them search for old frenemies and other members of Frank's former CIA squad.  These include terminally ill JOE MATHESON (Morgan Freeman) in a nursing home, paranoid MARVIN BOGGS, bored former CIA agent VICTORIA, ex-Russian secret agent IVAN SIMONOV who was once Victoria's lover, and others. These old friends generally greet Frank by asking if he's going to kill them, and then showing him that they have their own guns. It all gets straightened out, and the reconstituted crew goes on the hunt for WILLIAM COOPER, the CIA agent who is trying to kill Frank to prevent revelations of past atrocities in Guatemala in which the Vice President was involved.

Yeah, a little complicated, but all laid out logically enough to be easily followed.

Why the CIA decides now, so many years after the event, to try to silence Frank is a bit vague.

Do not confuse this movie with REDS, Warren Beatty's movie about Bolshevik sympathizers around the first World War. REDS is carefully crafted, intellectually stimulating, and worthless as a workout film.

Frank and the other members of his team are pleasant and often funny. Unfortunately they're killers who not only do not regret taking life, but in some cases, actively relish returning to that activity. In other words, they are psychopaths. None of the reviews I saw mentions this little detail.

As a cinematic production, RED is, well, stupid. But it's exciting, suspenseful and humorous. As a workout movie, it deserves ++++ - it will frequently get your pulse up to a run, and I, for one, plan to see the sequel, RED2.