Retired and Extremely Dangerous

A few years ago I had an idea for one of those films you know will never get made, and it revolved around a retirement home for Hollywood’s finest, featuring people like Clint Eastwood, Jack Nicholson, all playing stereotyped versions of themselves, Nicholson the laid back ladies man, Eastwood the grumpy hard-ass and so on, and the whole place was run by 80’s everywhere man Steven Guttenberg, who had to get a proper job once the 80’s finished and he stopped making movies, like Last of the Summer Wine with laughs.

The plot, though I never really got that far, would have run along the lines between The Dream Team (1989) where four psychiatric patients, including Michael Keaton and Christopher Lloyd, are left unsupervised during a field trip, and Bubba Ho-Tep (2002) in which Bruce Campbell plays and elderly Elvis. Presley bored of fame, had himself replaced with an impersonator, who then later dies, leaving old man Elvis in a nursing home. A bizarre concept already, but you ain’t heard nothing yet, the nursing home is being stalked by Bubba Ho-Tep a mummy whos stealing the souls of the residents, Elvis then teams up with Jack (Ossie Davis) and elderly Blackman, who thinks he's John F. Kennedy, believing that after the assassination he was patched up, dyed black, as he puts it the perfect disguise, and hidden in a care home.

Told you it got more bizarre, bizarre but brilliant. Anyway the point wasn’t to tell you about two films your likely never to have heard of, and one imaginary one, one day Hollywood one day, but in a round about way tell you about Red, a film about Retired secret service agents featuring the potential cast list from my imaginary movie, Bruce Willis, he’d have be an orderly, as he doesn’t look old enough , John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Richard Dreyfuss, Ernest Borgnine and Brian Cox. I think Ernest Borgnine would have to be the grand sage, the one the others would go to for advice, a cross between Mr. Miyagi and Gandalf.

After that imaginary detour, we come back to Red, Bruce Willis at his cool and causal best, plays a retired CIA black-ops agent, who’s forced out of said retirement when his home is assaulted by a hit squad, for his part in a 30 year old operation in Guatemala. He then teams up with ex-colleague and Paranoid John Malkovich, ex-KGB agent Brian Cox, Ex-MI6 agent Helen Mirren and ex-CIA agent Morgan Freeman, to uncover why he and everyone else involved with the operation are being bumped off.

This is the kind of film The Expendables could have been, where The Expendables brought together the cream of action movies past and present, and throw them at a generic straight to DVD plot, with some awful dialogue, lets be honest that was all irrelevant, the only reason anyone wanted to see it was for the cast, box ticked. Red however has started with the story, radical thinking I know, then cast cinema greats in the various roles, even minor roles.

Red’s based on a three issue comic from DC, and this fact is evident in the direction and storytelling, the story moves along at a rapid pace, without seeming rushed, and every shot seems to have been lifted straight of the page. Its got James Bond cool, without the misogyny, its sleek and sexy, like a designer gowned starlet on Oscar night touting a Uzi, its light hearted without being flippant, both contemporary and old school. Lets be honest Red won’t ever win an academy award for best picture, its not about self discovery, schizophrenic mathematicians or stuttering monarchs, but then the best picture doesn’t always win the best picture, Shakespeare in Love beat The Thin Red Line, and The Hurt Locker beat everything.

My three favourite moments from the film, which, I think all appear in the trailer, are as followed, Bruce Willis kicking Karl Urban through a glass Table, Helen Mirren wielding a machine gun, and John Malkovich running down the street shouting menacingly , while strapped with explosives. Malkovich’s turn here also makes up for his half-hearted appearance in Jonah Hex, I‘ve written all about that disappointment already so I won‘t get into it again, but….