This year has seen a lot of action/comedies and many of those have been based on comic books. By and large they have been pretty good but we’ve just been delivered the best of them. Red isn’t a perfect movie but it is well shot, well acted and a hell of a lot of fun.

Bruce Willis stars as Frank Moses, a retired CIA operative who is living alone and occupying his time by calling Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), a call center operator for his pension. The two have developed a flirtatious rapport and Frank suggests they get together when he is in her city the next week. Then a kill team shows up and Frank dispatches them all with a minimum of effort and a maximum of cool. He goes to get Sarah from Kansas City as he rightfully suspects that whoever tried to kill him is going to go after her for being too close to him. Frank reaches out to Joe (Morgan Freeman) an old contact who is now in a retirement home and he begins a globe hopping search for whoever it is that is coming after him and to find out why. Meanwhile, the CIA sends William Cooper (Karl Urban), a wetworks operator, after Frank to shut him down for good. Frank puts together a team of Retired Extremely Dangerous operatives (John Malkovich and Helen Mirren) to try to take the fight to his attackers.

The plot is a bit convoluted and is filled with cliches from just about every other action movie ever but it clips along at a snappy pace and it is told incredibly well with amusing dialog and very well directed and choreographed action scenes. In fact, it is written and directed so well that it almost makes some of the overused genre conventions feel fresh. Red is a great example of how you can take well worn material and make it feel new with a solid delivery. It also demonstrates that good writing can mean different things.  Just because a story takes familiar turns doesn’t mean that those turns can’t be effective. The one liners here alone are worth the price of admission.

The performances help sell it too and the all-star cast, which even includes Richard Dreyfuss, does a great job. Everyone seems to be having a lot of fun and that fun is infectious to the audience. The only actor who doesn’t look like he is having fun is Karl Urban who gives his character just the right balance of stoicism and vulnerability. He isn’t the typical movie professional killer, which are usually either deadpan and too cool for school or are quirky wisecrackers. Cooper is concerned about his wife and child and ambitious in his job but is generally unflappable. He is a guy with a family and a life who happens to kill people for the government.

John Malkovich really shines as Marvin Boggs, a Red who underwent extensive mind tests for many years and who is now massively paranoid. Boggs is a much more over the top version of Malkovich’s character in Burn After Reading and is one of the best parts of the movie. It is great to see him really cut loose here.

The action scenes in Red eschew realism for over the top cool and are shot in such a way that you can actually see everything going on. It sounds ridiculous to say but lately actually seeing the action is not a forgone conclusion. More than that, even when the action goes far a field of possible the performers look like they are really doing it and doing it well. Some actioners this year have had their action scenes hamstrung by shoddy performances. When Angelina Jolie jumps off a wall to kick a dude in the face and he flies backward several feet in Salt it felt staged and kind of ridiculous just because she didn’t really look like she could do it. In Red, on the other hand, when Helen Mirren snipes fools from a snowy vantage point or shoots her way out of a hotel she looks like she has been doing that shit for years. It isn’t surprising that Bruce Willis handles the fighting well and looks good doing it but when Malkovich and Mirren are looking like naturals behind a gun, you know that the film is well done.

The editing is really great here too and there are some very amusing cuts from action scenes to more mundane shots and back again with well used music cues that are hilarious. Even better, these moments are used sparingly so they never get old and have just the right amount comedic punch. Unfortunately, even with the well done editing and generally good pacing, there are a few moments in the movie that start to drag. They aren’t too bad but are accentuated by how fun and awesome the rest of the movie is.

Conclusion [9.0 out of 10]

Red is a very well made action movie that may suffer from some minor pacing issues and a cliched story but is so fun that those minor quibbles don’t really matter. It isn’t going to win anybody an Oscar but it is very entertaining and very worth watching. Everyone involved does a great job and it pays dividends on the screen. Red also makes me wonder what the hell it is doing opening in October instead of during the summer. I would have much rather seen this than Knight and Day back in June…or Salt in July. Either way, it is just good to see it now.