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When we
first meet
ex-CIA agent Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) and his civilian girlfriend
Sarah Ross
(Mary-Louise Parker), they’re trying to live the normal, good ol’
American life
– shopping, picking out household appliances, discussing their
relationship.
It’s all very danger-free with no assassins or espionage-related
antics.
However, when Frank and Marvin (John Malkovich) are falsely accused, on
WikiLeaks, of being involved in the creation of a weapon of mass
destruction
and end up on Interpol’s most wanted list, things take a different
turn. Frank
and co. are determined to track down the person(s) behind the damaging
leak and
clear themselves of being domestic terrorists. Oh, and they save the
world in
the process.
Red 2 features
a much-appreciated eclectic mix of quirky characters. Dame
Helen Mirren is the show-stealer as the icy and self-possessed Victoria
Winslow
– the MI6 silver vixen contracted to kill Frank and Marvin. And she’s
not the
only one hunting the duo down. There’s the Korean Han Cho Bai (Lee
Byung Hun,
Storm Shadow from the G.I. Joe films) – the number one assassin
in the
world, and the dominatrix-like Russian seductress Katja (Catherine
Zeta-Jones),
who has a fetish for bald men and their apparent virility. And let’s
not forget
Dr Bailey (Anthony Hopkins), the criminal mastermind who creates nerve
agents
and hallucinates cows.
Let these
gutsy
characters loose in the same space and you get a nice mix of comedy,
chaos, double-crossing
and dirty dealing. All are cats and mice in a constant game of
outwitting and
outgunning. They’re two or three moves ahead of or behind each other –
swindle
after swindle after swindle. Don’t try to figure out their plans. Just
sit back
and enjoy the unexpected twists and surprises.
Throughout
the film,
an odd idea keeps popping up – blind obedience versus personal
morality. It’s
not about following orders, Frank persuades Katja, but about doing
what’s
right. But what exactly is right? Most
of the characters’ moral compasses are questionable. For example,
towards the
end of the film, Victoria opens fire on innocent personnel in the
Iranian
embassy, left and right. It’s fiction, yes, but news junkies will
inevitably make
a connection between this and the death of US ambassador Christopher
Stevens in
Libya. Even Sarah, the femme fatale in training, rashly shoots an
embassy
worker out of panic. For the greater good of the nation, I guess.
Also
in line with action-film
silliness, many characters get away with excessive gunfire and car
explosions on
ordinary urban streets – no police intervention whatsoever. It’s
illogical, but
most viewers will just shrug it off. And when the police do intervene,
they’re
pretty helpless. In Moscow, Han, with both hands cuffed to a fridge
door, still
manages to single-handedly knock out a team of fully armed officers.
Why didn’t
they just use a stun gun or capsicum spray? We get it, Lee Byung Hun.
You rule at
martial arts and the writers/director wanted to show you off.
The
film’s worst attribute – the distracting product placements, the
main culprits being Pringles, MoonPie and Papa John’s Pizza. Sure,
these
companies most probably helped fund the project but they were given so
much screen
time. Did Pringles really need that random 3-second logo close-up? Did
John
Malkovich really need to eat a decades-old moon pie? Did a bumbling
Anthony
Hopkins really need to say, “Who’s Papa John?”
Now
I may sound crazily
annoyed with this film, but that's far from it. It’s so darn well made
that I’m
just looking for as many problem areas as possible. As a piece of
escapist
entertainment, Red 2 is highly recommended. It succeeds in
working
aspects of current affairs – military whistleblowers, government leaks,
Iranian
nuclear development – into a fun film that doesn’t pretend to be some
political
opus.
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