REVIEW: Red Light – Proceed with Caution
“RED” was overall a pretty good film, but definitely had some faults. This film tells the story of CIA retiree Frank Moses (Bruce Willis), who is attacked late one night in his home, and he has no idea why. He meets up with some of his old CIA buddies and together they try to find out who is behind everything and end it.
There is also a side story concerning a growing romance between Moses and Sarah Ross (Mary-Louise Parker). Sarah is forced to tag along for the ride because she is in danger as well. The two get off to a bumpy start, but over time they become more fond of each other.
As Frank searches to find out who is after him, he discovers that it is actually his replacements back at the CIA that are trying to kill him. When he tries to find out why they are after him, he finds a big bad government cover up. The only way to ensure his safety is to stop the men in charge of this cover up, which proves to be a difficult and dangerous task.
Overall, “RED” tells a great story. It was well conceived, and has an all-star cast of Hollywood veterans. Unfortunately, the best of these all-stars, Morgan Freeman, didn’t get much screen time. Based on the previews I expected him to play a much bigger role.
The same could be said for Oscar winner Helen Mirren. She too, was highlighted in the previews, but she didn’t even appear on screen until halfway through the film. It was truly disappointing because both Freeman and Mirren were excellent, there just wasn’t enough of them.
To add to this, Willis and Parker got way more screen time then they deserved. Their acting was good, but the movie wasted so much time focusing on their romance. It was frustrating to me, and whenever the romance interrupted the fun action, it just felt awkward and almost childish. It made the movie move at too slow of a pace.
This slow pace was especially a killer at the beginning of the movie. It was like the first half hour of the film could have happened in ten minutes, and the movie still would have been just as good, if not better. Once the film got passed this long and bumpy start, the rest of it was pretty sweet.
There were great action sequences and some quality suspense. The film also gave the audience the right dosage of humor. This can mostly be credited to the fun and quirky performance of John Malkovich as a paranoid Marvin Boggs.
Throughout this highlight reel of classic Hollywood stars, there was one young actor that shined as well. Karl Urban starred as the fierce CIA agent William Cooper. He in many ways was the “bad guy” of the film, and played the role well. His performance and swagger reminded me much of a younger Brad Pitt. There were similarities in their attitude and mannerisms. I hope that Urban continues to find success in his acting career.
The directing job of this movie was mostly successful. It was directed by Robert Schwentke, a relatively young and unknown man in the movie making world. The action scenes were done well, and edited perfectly. A fight scene between Moses and Cooper was probably the highlight of this film. It was very well choreographed, and kept audiences on edge. Yet, as stated earlier, when the action stopped, the movie struggled. The time in between the suspense just felt awkward and too time consuming.
“It could have been better” is the bottom line of this movie. It was a great idea for a story, but it should have been told by a different story teller. The previews showed off an action-packed thriller, which was definitely not the case. The cast did a phenomenal job, but it all just lacked the proper focus to be the great movie it “could have been.” And on a personal level, I needed to see more of my boy Freeman.
So basically, if I could just grade the cast, they would get an A, but that’s not how it works. I grade the whole production, and overall it gets a C+. It passes the class, but not by much.
– jace.smellie@aggiemail.usu.edu