FILM REVIEW RED 3

BACK IN THE FIELD?Helen Mirren stars in ‘RED 2’.

A few too many twists and turns


Cinema
Daniel Carey

THERE is, apparently, a Turkish tragicomedy called ‘Varyemez’ in which a rich industrialist is believed to have been killed by kidnappers. Realising that they were better off without him, his family and business partners had deliberately not paid the ransom. Unfortunately for them, he is very much alive and angry at his family’s duplicity. As he plans his revenge on them, the man attends his own memorial event, watching his wife and son shed crocodile tears and his business partner discussing how to divide up his business.
There is also a premature funeral and plenty of duplicity in ‘RED 2’, Dean Parisot’s sequel to the 2010 action-comedy about a group of ‘retired, extremely dangerous’ ex-CIA operatives. But although most of the all-star cast are back in harness, it doesn’t quite match its enjoyably silly predecessor.
The plot is complicated enough to make even the arthouse-phobic film fan yearn for a bit of Turkish tragicomedy. It involves a nuclear device left in Moscow years previously by scientist Edward Bailey (Anthony Hopkins), and takes in New Jersey, Hong Kong, Washington DC, London and Paris as well as the Russian capital.
Some of the plusses first. Hopkins channels his most famous altar ego Hannibal Lecter, while Helen Mirren (the best thing about both ‘RED’ movies) briefly gets to impersonate the Queen in an effort to gain access to an insane asylum. John Malkovich’s ultra-paranoid Marvin delivers a line worthy of Cyrus The Virus or Tom Ripley, plaintively asking at one point: “Why don’t they just dip our balls in honey and stake us to an ant farm?”
Elsewhere, the cast may be having fun, but that doesn’t always translate into entertainment for the audience. Bruce Willis, as Frank Moses, seems as tired of beating up various bad guys as some of us are of watching him do it. Mary-Louise Parker returns as Sarah, his unlikely squeeze, who seems more anxious for excitement than he is. Catherine Zeta-Jones pop up as an old Russian love interest of the bald one.
At the beginning of the flick, Frank is playing house, out shopping in his local supermarket, when Marvin shows up, reminding him wistfully: “You haven’t killed anyone in months!” Then a car explodes, incorrect information is posted on the internet, and suddenly everybody is out to get them.
Neal McDonough from ‘Desperate Housewives’ and ‘Band of Brothers’ shows up as one of many people trying to assassinate Frank. Victoria (Mirren) and a Korean called Han (Byung-hun Lee) are also given licences to kill.”If I don’t, someone else will,” the English woman wearily explains over the phone, while simultaneously ending another man’s life in her London apartment.
The action sequences include Frank finding amusing ways to slay multiple enemies in a secret facility, various shoot-outs in Paris and a car chase. There’s a hint of nostalgia when a Moscow safe-house is opened for the first time in decades – among the paraphernalia contained therein is a Penthouse magazine from 1984, and a Rubik’s Cube. A mass toilet explosion provokes a few giggles.
The original ‘RED’ had a better first half than second, and that’s also true of this instalment. Twist is piled upon twist in the latter stages, and we rush from the Kremlin to the Iranian Embassy in London as a series of elaborate set-pieces begin to throttle the film’s momentum. The writers Jon and Erich Hoeber might have worked on improving the script rather than delivering an extraordinarily convoluted narrative. Something to bear in mind ahead of the inevitable ‘RED 3’.

Rating 5 out of 10