Seeing RED: Retired Extremely Dangerous

It's Saturday morning, my extra-special, reserved, don't bother me, don't call me, leave me alone time.  My day to sleep in.  AAARRRRGGGGHHHH.  Somebody has torn down the house across the street from me (a cute little cape cod) and is building a four bedroom colonial with a two car garage.  To add insult to injury, not only does this new house loom over our little piece of the neighborhood's landscape and take up most of the lot, this #*%#@!*&%$ builder is having the crew work on Saturdays.  Starting at 7 AM.  So, I've been up since 7 AM.  And  SEEING RED.  What is a reasonable person to do?  Well, I don't know about you, but I checked the movie listings and RED was playing at 10:20 (the $6 admission, sweet!) so I went to see RED. 

I've been looking forward to seeing this movie.  This is a movie that the Ladies would usually gather for, have brunch then go see together.  Alas, this didn't happen.  We all sort of made different plans for this one.  Oh well, at least I had a nice back-up for the early morning disruption of my day to sleep in.  (I wonder if I can sue that builder for ruining my "pursuit of happiness"?)  But I've digressed again.  Back to movie.

This is the blurb on IMDB about the plot:  When his idyllic life is threatened by a high-tech assassin, former black-ops agent Frank Moses reassembles his old team in a last ditch effort to survive.  Frank Moses is played by Bruce Willis.  So now you can see where this is going.  If not, go back to previous blog posts and read up on Bruce Willis.  Then come back here.  That's okay, we'll wait for you.  Okay, good.  Next to show up in this movie, a bit of surprise, is Mary-Louise Parker.  I like her, just the right amount of normal with lots of quirkiness.  Loved her on the West Wing.  Really great in Weeds (note to self- finish watching that.)  Then Morgan Freeman joins in, we pick up the incomparable John Malkovich and oh, look, it's Helen Mirren!  That's quite a gang.  Of course, not only does the gang need to stay alive and keep fighting off the killers, they need to find out why they are being shot at in the first place and who ordered this.  Now it's time for the bad guys (masquerading as good guys of course). 

For the bad guys we have Rebecca Pidgeon (stiff, but then she doesn't really have to do much but give orders and fade into the background), Karl Urban as William Cooper, the operative given the main task to take care of Frank Moses.  Now this is an interesting role.  And an interesting actor.  And there it is on IMDB- William Cooper was Eomer in LOTR.  Now I can see it.  He was also in a lot of other things, most recently the new Star Trek and played Bones.  I like this guy.  I think we'll be seeing more of him.  (Hint: the powers that be are making a sequel to Star Trek.)  But there I go again, getting off track.  Next up on the list of bad guys:  the evil business man played by none other than Richard Dreyfuss.  He makes a great evil business man.  The stature, the voice, everything about him fits perfectly into this role.  And can he work it.  Let's see, who's left.  Oh, the guy who plays the Vice President of the USA.  He looked very familiar so another trip to IMDB which revealed his regular appearance on Nip/Tuck, hence his familiarity.  No, I don't watch N/T, just see commercials with his face from time to time.  He also played Victor Von Doom/Dr. Doom in the Fantastic Four.

So, we've rounded out the cast on both sides.  Now, why would anyone want to interrupt the retirement of Frank Moses (Willis) who is trying to woo, long distance Mary-Louise Parker's character?  And why?  Oh, and a Russian gets involved, was involved a long time ago, does a favor, something like that.  You really should see the movie. 

Overall, I give the movie an A-.  It was just a bit slower than the usual action packed adventures, but then, they retired, right?