As it turns out, he really was being given daily doses of LSD for 11 years.

RED

(2010)

(SPOILERS) A second viewing of that latter-day Bruce Willis rarity; one of his movies where seems to be making an effort and engaging with the material. I selected it as a double bill with this year’s sequel and, for all the common complaint that RED’s an agreeable movie that refuses to stick in the mind 10 minutes after it’s over (I have to admit that, Malkovich aside, that was also true for me), it holds up to a repeat encounter.

This also makes it an even rarer of beasts; a decent movie based on a DC comics property (albeit a relatively obscure one). Appropriately and/or ironically, given said quality issues, Warners weren’t interested in making it and it eventually ended up with Summit Entertainment. The signs still weren’t necessarily all that positive. On screenplay duties were Jon and Erich Hoeber. Responsible for the entirely hokey Whiteout, they would go on to pen the abysmal Battleship. Robert Schwentke, a German director of some ability but not known for picking strong material, then signed on (Flightplan; he would compound this status with R.I.P.D. last summer, one of the biggest bombs of the year).

Most iffy was the casting of Bruce Willis in the lead, a star whose choices were haphazard at best and who appeared to have left his funny bone back in the ‘90s. This was, after all, supposed to be an action comedy (again, a potential warning sign, as it diverged from the played-straight comic book). Willis occasionally delivered, but more commonly he plumped for impassive action roles, as if ashamed of the wisecracking persona that made his name. He continues on a trajectory that is nothing if not erratic; 2012 found him in a duo of decent movies (Looper and Moonrise Kingdom) only to piss all over the franchise that made his name in A Good Day to Die Hard. Fortunately the rest of the casting details soon emerged and added a modicum of promise; Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Richard Dreyfuss, Brian Cox, Karl Urban, Rebecca Pidgeon, Ernest Borgnine and Malkovich (replacing John C. Reilly).

“Retired, Extremely Dangerous” is the meaning of the acronym title. Whether it should be called RED or Red depends on whether you’re the movie poster or anyone else, it seems. The premise of a retired CIA agent, living in quiet Cleveland suburbia and livening up his day by calling the woman at the pensions department (Mary Louise Parker) might summon the unpleasant odour of the Bruce Willlis in witness relocation movie The Whole Nine Yards (another surprise – minor – success which fostered a roundly ignored and unwanted sequel).

But Schwentke, who hadn’t tapped his comic muscles since 2003’s Eierdiebe, proves adept at both the action and the laughs. The opening attempted hit on Willis’ Frank Moses at his home, as he effortlessly turns the tables on his would-be assassins, is played fairly straight – as is a later messy fight between Moses and Cooper (Karl Urban), the CIA agent charged with hunting him down. But the interplay between such moments is quirky and self-conscious, and on occasion there is a full-blown comedy action bonanza; Malkovich’s Marvin facing down a bazooka with a bullet being the most excessive and surreal example (and then there’s the hilariously OTT shot from the trailer, as Willis effortlessly steps out of a skidding car while firing at Urban).

Sarah: Did you vacuum?

Frank: A little, yeah. It was messy.

If Willis is more relaxed and charming than he has been in years, the lion’s share of the laughs goes to Malkovich. I never would have expected Willis and Malkovich to have such good chemistry. Paranoid and moderately unhinged, but not without good reason (“As it turns out, he really was being given daily doses of LSD for 11 years”), the movie’s best conceit is that Marvin is right about everything (when he pulls a gun on an “innocent” woman, Frank calls him off; later the same woman reappears armed with aforementioned bazooka). His enthusiasm for returning to the field is disarmingly innocent (“I’m getting the pig!”) and the sight of Malkovich, disconsolate and uncertain, holding his prized plush porker by the tail, is one of the actor’s greatest onscreen moments ever. Up there with his Valmont in Dangerous Liaisons.

Marvin: I miss all this. I haven’t killed anyone in years.

Frank: That’s sad.

The screenplay dutifully caters for each of the assembled veteran actors, though. Half the fun is seeing the unlikely but surprisingly seamless marriage of styles. Mirren is wonderful as the ex-MI6 agent who misses the life of assassinations (“I do take the odd contract on the side”) and her rekindled romance with Brian Cox’s big-hearted Russian is rather sweet. Meanwhile, Dreyfuss has a lot of fun with his character’s unrepentant villainy. Parker has the comedienne skills to pull off her sub-Kathleen Turner in Romancing the Stone role (the office girl who dreams of adventure), but the writers only ever give her predictable character beats (her “I was hoping you’d have hair” to Frank shows Willis an amusingly self-deprecating light).

All this fun with the character interactions ensures the plot itself was always going to play out as something rather incidental. So, when the film has to steer itself back round to dealing with revelations and resolutions during the final third, it elicits little more than a shrug. There are a few ill-advised moments along the way (faking Freeman’s death, then actually killing him) but mostly Schwentke judges the playful, flippant tone right. His postcard transitions between locations aren’t terribly successful, and the choice of rock music on the soundtrack when an action sequence kicks in shows plain poor judgement (there’s no excuse that he is parodying ‘80s action movies).

RED had me hoping against the odds that Bruce had finally got his groove back, and his subsequent reteaming with Wes Anderson seemed to confirm it. Sadly, I have to conclude that on the whole he’s really not that much fun any more. Just look at his litter of sadly undiscerning aging action turns in the last couple of years (Expendables 2, G.I. Joe 2, Die Hard 5). Occasionally he gets lucky (or perhaps he is on best behaviour, genuinely invigorated by working with an auteur; that would certainly explain why he caused Kevin Smith so much grief), so it’s worth savouring the slim pickings.

***1/2

I’m smarter than a beaver.

Prey (2022) (SPOILERS) If nothing else, I have to respect Dan Trachtenberg’s cynical pragmatism. How do I not only get a project off the ground, but fast-tracked as well? I know, a woke Predator movie! Woke Disney won’t be able to resist! And so, it comes to pass. Luckily for Prey , it gets to bypass cinemas and so the same sorry fate of Lightyear . Less fortunately, it’s a patience-testing snook cocking at historicity (or at least, assumed historicity), in which a young, pint-sized Comanche girl who wishes to hunt and fish – and doubtless shoot to boot – with the big boys gets to take on a Predator and make mincemeat of him. Well, of course , she does. She’s a girl, innit?

If you ride like lightning, you're going to crash like thunder.

The Place Beyond the Pines (2012) (SPOILERS) There’s something daringly perverse about the attempt to weave a serious-minded, generation-spanning saga from the hare-brained premise of The Place Beyond the Pines . When he learns he is a daddy, a fairground stunt biker turns bank robber in order to provide for his family. It’s the kind of “only-in-Hollywood” fantasy premise you might expect from a system that unleashed Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man and Point Break on the world. But this is an indie-minded movie from the director of the acclaimed Blue Valentine ; it demands respect and earnest appraisal. Unfortunately it never recovers from the abject silliness of the set-up. The picture is littered with piecemeal characters and scenarios. There’s a hope that maybe the big themes will even out the rocky terrain but in the end it’s because of this overreaching ambition that the film ends up so undernourished. The inspiration for the movie

Everyone creates the thing they dread.

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) (SPOILERS) Avengers: Age of Ultron ’s problem isn’t one of lack. It benefits from a solid central plot. It features a host of standout scenes and set pieces. It hands (most of) its characters strong defining moments. It doesn’t even suffer now the “wow” factor of seeing the team together for the first time has subsided. Its problem is that it’s too encumbered. Maybe its asking to much of a director to effectively martial the many different elements required by an ensemble superhero movie such as this, yet Joss Whedon’s predecessor feels positively lean in comparison. Part of this is simply down to the demands of the vaster Marvel franchise machine. Seeds are laid for Captain America: Civil War , Infinity Wars I & II , Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok . It feels like several spinning plates too many. Such activity occasionally became over-intrusive on previous occasions ( Iron Man II ), but there are points in Age of Ultron whe

This entire edifice you see around you, built on jute.

Jeeves and Wooster 3.3: Cyril and the Broadway Musical (aka Introduction on Broadway) Well, that’s a relief. After a couple of middling episodes, the third season bounces right back, and that's despite Bertie continuing his transatlantic trip. Clive Exton once again plunders Carry On, Jeeves but this time blends it with a tale from The Inimitable Jeeves for the brightest spots, as Cyril Basington-Basington (a sublimely drippy Nicholas Hewetson) pursues his stage career against Aunt Agatha's wishes.

I’m the famous comedian, Arnold Braunschweiger.

Last Action Hero (1993) (SPOILERS) Make no mistake, Last Action Hero is a mess. But even as a mess, it might be more interesting than any other movie Arnie made during that decade, perhaps even in his entire career. Hellzapoppin’ (after the 1941 picture, itself based on a Broadway revue) has virtually become an adjective to describe films that comment upon their own artifice, break the fourth wall, and generally disrespect the convention of suspending disbelief in the fictions we see parading across the screen. It was fairly audacious, some would say foolish, of Arnie to attempt something of that nature at this point in his career, which was at its peak, rather than playing it safe. That he stumbled profoundly, emphatically so since he went up against the behemoth that is Jurassic Park (slotted in after the fact to open first), should not blind one to the considerable merits of his ultimate, and final, really, attempt to experiment with the limits of his screen persona.

I think it’s pretty clear whose side the Lord’s on, Barrington.

Monte Carlo or Bust aka Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies (1969) (SPOILERS) Ken Annakin’s semi-sequel to Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines tends to be rather maligned, usually compared negatively to its more famous predecessor. Which makes me rather wonder if those expressing said opinion have ever taken the time to scrutinise them side by side. Or watch them back to back (which would be more sensible). Because Monte Carlo or Bust is by far the superior movie. Indeed, for all its imperfections and foibles (not least a performance from Tony Curtis requiring a taste for comic ham), I adore it. It’s probably the best wacky race movie there is, simply because each set of competitors, shamelessly exemplifying a different national stereotype (albeit there are two pairs of Brits, and a damsel in distress), are vibrant and cartoonish in the best sense. Albeit, it has to be admitted that, as far as said stereotypes go, Annakin’s home side win

Death to Bill and Ted!

Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991) (SPOILERS) The game of how few sequels are actually better than the original is so well worn, it was old when Scream 2 made a major meta thing out of it (and it wasn’t). Bill & Ted Go to Hell , as Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey was originally called, is one such, not that Excellent Adventure is anything to be sneezed at, but this one’s more confident, even more playful, more assured and more smartly stupid. And in Peter Hewitt it has a director with a much more overt and fittingly cartoonish style than the amiably pedestrian Stephen Herrick. Evil Bill : First, we totally kill Bill and Ted. Evil Ted : Then we take over their lives. My recollection of the picture’s general consensus was that it surpassed the sleeper hit original, but Rotten Tomatoes’ review aggregator suggests a less universal response. And, while it didn’t rock any oceans at the box office, Bogus Journey and Point Break did quite nicely for Keanu Reev

Just because you are a character doesn't mean that you have character.

Pulp Fiction (1994) (SPOILERS) From a UK perspective, Pulp Fiction ’s success seemed like a fait accompli; Reservoir Dogs had gone beyond the mere cult item it was Stateside and impacted mainstream culture itself (hard to believe now that it was once banned on home video); it was a case of Tarantino filling a gap in the market no one knew was there until he drew attention to it (and which quickly became over-saturated with pale imitators subsequently). Where his debut was a grower, Pulp Fiction hit the ground running, an instant critical and commercial success (it won the Palme d’Or four months before its release), only made cooler by being robbed of the Best Picture Oscar by Forrest Gump . And unlike some famously-cited should-have-beens, Tarantino’s masterpiece really did deserve it.

Poetry in translation is like taking a shower with a raincoat on.

Paterson (2016) (SPOILERS) Spoiling a movie where nothing much happens is difficult, but I tend to put the tag on in a cautionary sense much of the time. Paterson is Jim Jarmusch at his most inert and ambient but also his most rewardingly meditative. Paterson (Adam Driver), a bus driver and modest poet living in Paterson, New Jersey, is a stoic in a fundamental sense, and if he has a character arc of any description, which he doesn’t really, it’s the realisation that is what he is. Jarmusch’s picture is absent major conflict or drama; the most significant episodes feature Paterson’s bus breaking down, the English bull terrier Marvin – whom Paterson doesn’t care for but girlfriend Laura (Golshifteh Farahani) dotes on – destroying his book of poetry, and an altercation at the local bar involving a gun that turns out to be a water pistol. And Paterson takes it all in his stride, genial to the last, even the ruination of his most earnest, devoted work (the only disappoint

Piece by piece, the camel enters the couscous.

The Forgiven (2021) (SPOILERS) By this point, the differences between filmmaker John Michael McDonagh and his younger brother, filmmaker and playwright Martin McDonagh, are fairly clearly established. Both wear badges of irreverence and provocation in their writing, and a willingness to tackle – or take pot-shots – at bigger issues, ones that may find them dangling their toes in hot water. But Martin receives the lion’s share of the critical attention, while John is generally recognised as the slightly lesser light. Sure, some might mistake Seven Psychopaths for a John movie, and Calvary for a Martin one, but there’s a more flagrant sense of attention seeking in John’s work, and concomitantly less substance. The Forgiven is clearly aiming more in the expressly substantial vein of John’s earlier Calvary, but it ultimately bears the same kind of issues in delivery.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog