RED (4 Stars)

I suppose that "RED" is the correct spelling of the film's title, one word all capitals. Technically it should be "R.E.D.", since it stands for "Retired Extremely Dangerous", but I'll stick with the name that's been given to it. Sometimes there are discrepancies between the posters, the DVD covers and the title in the film myself. The example that springs to mind is "Run Fatboy Run". I'm surprised I didn't mention it when I wrote my review. That's the way it's spelt on the splash screen of the film itself, but both the posters and the English DVD covers write "Fat Boy" as two words. The American DVD covers write "Fatboy" as one word. That must make it confusing for mailorder companies.

I've avoided watching "RED" since it was released in 2009, despite the nagging of a friend who absolutely loves it. Something seems terribly un-sexy about a group of old men and women reuniting to face a common enemy. I needn't have worried. The film is perfect. It's a very good story, and the age aspect adds a certain poignancy to it.

Frank Moses is a retired CIA agent. He lives a comfortable but reclusive life in Ohio, receiving a generous pension. He has a crush on Sarah Ross, a woman who works at the pension department in Kansas City. He's never met her, he just likes her voice and makes excuses to ring her as often as he can. His comfort is disturbed when a heavily armed assault team comes in the middle of the night to assassinate him. He escapes them, but in the process his house is destroyed, and he's on the run. The first thing he does is drive to Kansas City and pick up Sarah, because he thinks that Sarah might also be in danger, since she's his only friend. That's sad. He finds out the assault team was made up of CIA operatives, and he also discovers that several of his former colleagues have also been killed. He realises that they all have in common that they took part in a mission in Guatamala in 1983, so he rounds up the survivors from that mission to find out why the CIA wants to eliminate them.

CIA agent William Cooper in a previous life

This is a very good film. I particularly enjoyed the performance of Karl Urban as Frank's nemesis, the young CIA agent who is just "doing his job". Apart from appearing in "Star Trek XI" this is the first time I've seen him since his regular role as Julius Caesar in "Xena Warrior Princess". He's an underrated actor who deserves bigger roles. The main roles, the old guys, are played by Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman and Helen Mirren, all first rate actors in their own right.

I didn't realise until today that the film is based on a DC Comics graphic novel. If I'd known that I might have watched it earlier.