VIDEO-RED

RED stands for "Retired Extremely Dangerous." The movie starring Bruce Willis and an all star cast is an action comedy. The action is awesome. The comedy is not as awesome. John Malkovich gets all the laughs in this one as an ex-CIA guy turned survivalist/conspiracy theorist type. To be honest, I find more laughs in a straight ahead action movie than this mash up of genres.

The problem with RED is that every person in the movie is a complete bad ass except Mary Louise-Parker who doesn't get enough screen time as the normal person and straight woman in this bizarro wacky spy world. Bruce Willis plays a retired CIA black ops guy who falls in love with Parker over the phone. Then, he is targeted for assassination, so he has to rescue his woman who he has never met in person because she will be liquidated with the same extreme prejudice. Hilarity and action ensue as old buddies come out to lend a hand. For me, the funniest part is when Malkovich neutralizes a flying RPG shell with a single bullet. Those silly action scenes are the best part of the movie. But the characters aren't that funny except for Malkovich.

Movies like this are better done with comedians. But comedy is where people are shown to be worse than they actually are. In RED, everyone is too bad ass to laugh at. As such, the flick is a brilliant failure. It would have been better with Bill Murray instead of Bruce Willis.

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