HeyUGuys, along with the entire UK population, spent the first half of this week awaiting word of the latest governmental spending review.  Word went out on Wednesday afternoon that, among the many controversial reforms our coalition government intended to enforce, the state pension age was set to rise to 66 by the year 2018.  On Friday in the UK an unusual new action comedy opens in which a group of pensioners take issue with a rather more permanent retirement plan and tool up to fight back.  The film is RED.

Frank Moses is trying hard to live the suburban dream.  He puts out his bins, marks the changing of the seasons and keeps himself to himself like any good neighbour.  Sarah Ross is slowly losing faith in the dating game.  She daydreams away much of her day in her tiny grey cubicle, looking at postcards of anywhere-but-here and wishing someone would take her away from all this.  Frank and Sarah meet on the phone.  They bond over a mutual love of romance novels and a vulnerable avocado plant.  It seems certain that the slow burn of their affection will warm them in their advancing years.  Then Frank and Sarah meet in her apartment and it becomes apparent that Frank’s idea of romance is a much more violent affair…

RED is based upon an original graphic novel by Warren Ellis and illustrator Cully Hammer.  The original Wildstorm imprint story ran only 66 pages long.  Loving the character of former CIA agent and lonely retiree Frank Moses, Gregory Noveck – Senior VP of Creative Affairs at DC Comics – saw stardust in the story and brought writers Jon and Erich Hoeber on board to expand their tale to big screen proportions.  The resulting project is a gently funny caper picture with lovely 1930s undertones.  Under Robert Schwentke’s directorship RED bridges, with ease, the genres of action and comedy and offers viewers a chance to share a fun night at the movies with a generous handful of Hollywood veterans.  The big marquee names – Willis, Freeman, Malkovich, Dreyfuss, Cox, Borgnine and Mirren – are a draw alone and the comedy pairings do not disappoint, tangling old relationships and new resentments through the gunfight peppered plot.

The premise of RED is lovely – there is great comedy mileage in reuniting a team of lethal retirees.  There too are sweet notes of pathos in Frank’s loneliness and the ‘what if’ history between Brian Cox’s Russian agent and Helen Mirren’s efficient assassin Victoria.  I was delighted to learn that Helen had chosen to channel rictus-grinning homemaker Martha Stewart in her performance, citing her combination of feminine softness and practicality and even borrowing her hairstyle!  John Malkovich literally springs out of hiding and into action when Frank and Sarah determine to solve the mystery of the newly acquired targets on their backs and his pantomime paranoia injects an energy into the film that carries it through some of its flabbier moments.  Praise is also due to Karl Urban, who proves his comedy chops as FBI agent William Cooper and provides some essential conflict of the emotional and physical kind.

There are flaws.  The script, like the pecs on its star, could have been tighter.  With such a cast onboard it was criminal not to capitalise on their verbal dexterity and whip up something a little more wisecracking.  Kick Ass, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and (the last Willis/Freeman outing) Lucky Number Slevin are each excellent examples of the alchemistic power a smart script has on an average story.  For me Mary-Louise Parker is underutilised as adventure-hungry Sarah and this is a pity as, in the rare moments her character is allowed to take centre stage, she is a delight.  The elder statesmen of the cast, though strong, seem overly reliant on their reputations preceding them and thus much of the characterisation is flimsy and superficial.  As concerns action…well far be it from me to advocate blood lust but a higher body count would have been nice given the amount of ammo flying around yet the death count was A-Team sparse.  And I for one could have handled a lot more Malkovich!

Perhaps not unlike the frustrated prospective UK retires of 2018 the cast of RED are Retired and Extremely Dangerous.  You can catch them at a cinema near you from Friday.