RED

(12A) 111mins

Director: Robert Schwentke

Starring: Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malcovich, Helen Mirren, Mary-Louise Parker

IF YOU want a fun movie that involves scores of corpses, big fight scenes and literally thousands of bullets then this is the one for you.

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However, if you’re the type of person who prefers not to be spoon-fed violence or put up with a plot that is predictable, then perhaps you’d better give it a miss.

The storyline, based on a graphic novel, involves Willis as a retired CIA operative who has a liking for a woman he talks to over the phone in the pensions department (Parker) - but his life is about to get very complicated when he is marked for being bumped off by his former employers.

So he teams up with fellow RED (retired and extremely dangerous) former agents to find out who wants to end his retirement early and why.

While the plot may not be the most demanding, the film does succeed by letting its rather impressive cast ‘do their thing’.

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So Willis is good as the action hero with a few comic lines, John Malcovich is very good as an operative who is definitely a few slices short of a loaf and Helen Mirren is surprisingly convincing as a gun-totting killer.

The ‘more mature Hollywood star’ status is increased with some neat cameos from Brian Cox, Richard Dreyfuss and Ernest Borgnine, all of whom show they have plenty still to give.

Mary-Louise Parker’s performance is one of the highlights as a woman desperate to live life more to the full and yet bemused as the action takes off around her.

This isn’t Oscar-winning stuff, but entertaining enough.

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