RED

Directed by Robert Schwentke, RED follows former black-ops agent Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) as he’s forced to go on the run after he and several cohorts, including Morgan Freeman’s Joe Matheson and John Malkovich’s Marvin Boggs, are targeted for assassination by the CIA. It’s an appealing setup that’s employed to pervasively slick yet mostly entertaining effect by Schwentke, as the filmmaker, armed with a script by Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber, delivers a briskly-paced actioner that’s enhanced by its proliferation of agreeably over-the-top set pieces and performances of an almost uniformly engaging nature – with, in terms of the latter, Willis’ charismatic, commanding efforts matched by such scene-stealing periphery players as Brian Cox, Karl Urban, Ernest Borgnine, and Richard Dreyfuss. And although the movie’s midsection admittedly does contain its share of palpable lulls, with the 111 minute runtime certainly not doing the proceedings any favors, RED progresses into a larger-than-life third act that boasts a few surprise twists and a propulsive feel that carries the picture through to its satisfying conclusion – with the end result an engaging (albeit forgettable) comic-book adaptation that might’ve benefited from harder edge (ie the whole thing is awfully bloodless).

*** out of ****