RED Review

By Ryan Hamelin

Movie Grade: B

What do you get when you put Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Mary Louis Parker, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Karl Urban and Richard Dreyfuss in a movie together? Apparently, a hell of a good time. RED brings us into a heightened reality of superstar retired CIA agents and governmental conspiracies. In a lot of ways, it’s the Ocean’s Eleven of spy movies, without copious twists or surprises. The flick oozes style, which doesn’t completely make up for the lack of substance involved. All the actors seem to be having a blast, and it gives the movie a refreshingly light-hearted tone. You’re not expected to think that what’s going on is reasonable, or even within the realm of the comic book source material, but you don’t have to do so in order to enjoy it. It kills a bit of the dramatic tension since you’re never really concerned about your favorite characters biting the dust, but the self-consciousness lends the project a certain charm it may not have otherwise had.

The plot unfolds in a pretty classic pattern, with the attempt on the protagonist’s life sparking a search for who’s trying to kill him and why. The team element, surprisingly, isn’t about getting an old squad together again like the ads would like you to think. Instead, each character is only thinly connected through prior missions and happen to be on the same hit list. This way, the writers can have the familiarity of old friends but the surprise of camaraderie in one movie, stuffing a lot of development into a smaller lightweight package. If someone told me that there was a sequel in the works, I’d have to ask “Why?” This feels like all the story that this universe has to offer, and if that isn’t a good reason to leave it as a standalone movie, I don’t know what is.

Unfortunately, RED never gets past the intellectual shallows, choosing to have fun with the action sequences and the one-liners instead of opening up the world and hinting at darker details. The audience is asked to believe that everyone involved are hardcore agents, but they don’t really earn our respect until the third act. It’s always Bruce Willis kicking ass, not his character, whereas John McLane was the reason that Die Hard was so successful. We never get past the celebrity of the actors, and while George Clooney and Brad Pitt robbing a casino felt genuinely inventive, the performances here serve more as simple plot advancement. There’s enough to enjoy on a superficial level, but if you’re looking for excitement, there’s not very much adrenaline to go around. Even the camerawork is calm and mostly stationary, a wonderful break from the modern action shakycam, but without story intensity to compromise.

The flick really reminds an audience that movie stars aren’t the powerhouses they used to be. Putting together a cast like this is an impressive feat by contemporary standards, as successful projects nowadays have less to do with the starring actors and more the type of story an audience wants to see. Still, we like watching Willis do his thing with a firearm, and there’s something comforting about an old school studio action movie still being able to find funding. Maybe endless franchises and sequelitis haven’t killed the industry yet. In any case, this is a definite matinee popcorn choice, and not something that should be critically analyzed or picked apart. Mindless fun seems to be in short supply these days, and in this case, there’s enough plot between the holes to keep it from feeling entirely worthless.

Cop Out Review

By Ryan Hamelin

Movie Grade: C-

“Unfortunate” is probably the first word to come to mind. “Inexcusable” is another good one, but if you’re not a fan of Kevin Smith, you probably wouldn’t find this film any less enjoyable than his past work. For those who can appreciate Clerks, Dogma, Chasing Amy and even Jersey Girl (with the help of some form of substance), it is understood that there is a really talented filmmaker beneath the layers of pop culture references and interesting characters with snappy dialogue. It would seem only natural that a true test of Smith’s directorial pedigree, helming a film he did not also write, would demonstrate to the world that Silent Bob was ready for large budget studio moviemaking. With a script that was originally titled A Couple of Dicks and Bruce Willis on board playing a cop, everything pointed towards a knock-it-out-of-the-park comedy experience that could bring in the new decade with a host of quotable lines and classic Smith comedic style. Instead, we got this.

Disclaimer Number One: I am not a Tracy Morgan fan. I have nothing personally against the guy, and I could tell from the handful of large laughs he received that others really appreciate his comedy, but he really just doesn’t do anything for me as a performer. The guy may be extremely talented and intelligent, but when operating at mentally disabled levels of stupidity, I just don’t find him funny. You hear loud obnoxious people like him in supermarkets all the time, that doesn’t mean you give them a movie deal.

Disclaimer Number Two: I am a Bruce Willis fan. I even enjoyed Surrogates for crying out loud. Something about Willis and the way he works always feels believable to me, and that puts him on a short list of guys who I think could legitimately kick ass in real life like they do in action movies. Part of what pains me so much about this particular performance is how totally phoned in it is. He doesn’t care about what’s going on. He’s holding a gun, but he’s not acting like a cop. He has literally no dramatic or emotional input in the entire film, and winds up just sort of floating along as the guy who supposedly enjoys Tracy Morgan’s company and doesn’t find him annoying (the most unrealistic character he’s every played). Add to that a lame subplot involving a baseball card, and you’ve got a guy who is simultaneously not Bruce Willis, nor even a human male capable of being played by Bruce Willis. It was hard to watch.

Now, Cop Out is a comedy, and as any good comedy writer knows, no great comedy has ever existed without a secret weapon. Bill Murray in Zombieland, Seth Rogen and Bill Hader in Superbad, Russell Brand in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, all helped elevate their respective movies into the pantheon of humor. Seeing as Cop Out was, up until this particular character’s entrance, struggling to make it into the realm of “decent” comedy, I’d say the film’s saving grace is a bit of a game changer, and the only truly salvageable part of the film. Who is so good that he almost makes seeing Cop Out worthwhile? I never thought I’d type this… but it’s Seann William Scott. He is almost unbearably funny here, and brings the usable runtime up to about 25 minutes. It’s been a while since he’s gotten the chance to nail a role as completely as he does in this film (Role Models was just Stifler in a Minotaur costume) and his parkour expert thief who ends up in the back of the cop car more often than any other character definitely shows signs of a career reemergence.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, this film tries to be a buddy cop movie. But when one of the two leads doesn’t care, the other one is annoying, and the bad guy is literally just wasted space, there’s not a whole lot of chance that the film will ever work beyond the most superficial level. Also, if a supporting character manages to completely steal a movie when he only appears in less than 1/3 of the total runtime… you have bigger script problems than a lack of compelling jokes. It depresses me to say it, but this is one Kevin Smith film I couldn’t enjoy, and I doubt many of you will either. Save your money, and if you’re really curious, catch it when it comes out on DVD.