Getting a read on "RED"

Sometimes it's best not to try to overanalyze certain films, especially those aiming for popular escapist entertainment of the summer blockbuster sort. Still, it was fun to dissect "RED," a fitting viewing and discussion for an early summer CineVerse meeting. Here are the thoughts and insights we came up with on this film:

WHAT THEMES ARE AT WORK IN “RED”?

• “Getting the band back together”

• A leopard cannot change its spots

• Age and wisdom before youth, and “our generation is better than your generation”

• Life is an endlessly fun vacation (as exemplified by the postcards that frame different segments in the movie)

TO THOSE VIEWERS WHO WOULD DISMISS THIS FILM AS DERIVATIVE, PREDICTABLE ESCAPIST ENTERTAINMENT, WHAT’S THE DEFENSE AND COUNTERPOINT?

• RED boasts a strong cast of Oscar-nominated A-list actors, each of which are not just painting by numbers and cashing a paycheck.

• Aside from Bruce Willis, most of these actors/characters are not your typical action/adventure stars—they skew much older and run the risk of looking ridiculous; in other words, this film is brave enough to cast against type and defy age expectations. It subverts the traditional action/adventure paradigm by appealing to Baby Boomers and presenting Boomer actors doing things normally reserved for much younger and more attractive actors.

o Critic James Berardinelli wrote: “There's no need to feel guilty about praising such an inherently silly motion picture. Like The Expendables, this is fast-paced, high octane entertainment for the AARP crowd. It never takes itself too seriously, which is a good thing because it's a stretch to imagine some of these actors doing the stuff they're called upon to do.”

• The tone and approach here, then, is irony: placing old fogies in young action hero shoes and milking the comedic opportunities therein while also motivating us to root for demographic underdogs. Because of these ironic sensibilities, it’s hard to criticize the picture.

• The heroes actually suffer wounds and fatalities. They are not impervious to danger and death.

• This film does not take itself too seriously, nor should audiences; it is unashamedly a balls-to-the-wall, over-the-top big budget summer action popcorn blockbuster that is somewhat immune to serious film analysis. It’s not trying to be deep, moving, resonant or thematically meaningful.

• It’s also based on a graphic novel/comic book, which gives it street cred and pop culture cache in an age when many high profile action films are sourced from similar pulpy texts.

“RED” HAS BEEN CITED AS PART OF A GEEZER ADVENTURE MOVIE TREND IN RECENT YEARS. WHAT OTHER FILMS BELONG IN THIS CATEGORY, AND WHY DO YOU BELIEVE GEEZER ADVENTURE CINEMA REMAINS POPULAR? 

• Other recent geezer adventure flicks include The Expendables, Space Cowboys, The A Team, Road Hogs, The Bucket List, The Last Stand, Grudge Match, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Going in Style, and Bullet to the Head.

• These films depicting older actors and aged characters engaging in missions, escapades and close calls normally involving young and athletic personalities are popular because Baby Boomers typically believe they’re never going to die and choose to think and live young. Boomers also love going to the movies and seeing actors from their generation continuing to appear in films.

• Blogger Alexander Hulls theorized the following: “America forgot how to make action movies. Where once we had a healthy action genre, now we just have action movies – most of which are superhero flicks or CGI sinkholes. There’s no more good old-fashioned bare-chested, bare-knuckled grit…no new young action stars have come along to replace the old, and the existing ones have faded (Tom Cruise, Will Smith). Now we just get regular actors like Matt Damon and Daniel Craig taking on action movies. That vacuum is precisely why Stallone was able to make The Expendables. He saw an opportunity to leverage the fact that Hollywood wasn’t offering us anything better than the best of the past. The modest but sequel-justifying success of Stallone’s film (and Red) in 2010 helped lay the groundwork for the potential financial viability of the movies we’re getting now. What does well gets made more, and so trends are born with business models founded on giving the people what they want until they don’t want it anymore. So, we’re getting older actors rising or returning to action star prominence. (These films are) a representative assertion that boomers are not useless, dismissible, and ready to make that long journey into night; they’re still capable, functional, and experts at whatever skills they have. That’s exactly why this wave of movies is constructed around narratives that center on these actors being better than their juniors who are ready to push them out of the way and forget them.”

OTHER MOVIES THAT “RED” REMINDS US OF:

• The Wild Bunch

• Ocean’s Eleven

• The Die Hard and James Bond films

• Knight and Day

• True Lies

OTHER FILMS DIRECTED BY ROBERT SCHWENTKE

• Flightplan

• The Time Traveler’s Wife

• Insurgent 

• Allegiant