Mission: Incontinent

In a year that began with Kick-Ass tweener Chloe Moretz slicing up gangstas while wearing a superhero costume, it’s perhaps not surprising that we now have sexagenarians Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman and John Malkovich mowing down bad guys with lethal firepower in Red.

Hey, what sub-group these days has not yet been put in charge of large firearms and explosives in the name of cinematic entertainment? How about soccer mom assassins? Cheerleader death squads? Nerd ninjas? Okay, let’s forget altogether Katherine Heigl as a would-be hit woman in that surefire flop, Killers. Red goes down a lot easier, like a Bloody Mary with a Geritol chaser, mostly due to the seasoned charm of its stars.

“RED” stands for “Retired, Extremely Dangerous,” based on a graphic novel that features a band of out-to-pasture CIA operatives who come back on the job to clean up a high-level murder plot. Willis is Frank Moses, an ex-CIA guy receiving his regular social security check — which he manages to “lose” every month so he can chat up Kansas City social security receptionist Sarah (Mary Louise Parker). When his house is turned into Swiss cheese by a hit squad packing mega-weapons, he decides to find out who’s behind it; he tries to hide out with Sara in Kansas City, only to end up on the run from the CIA.

Retirement plan: Bruce Willis and Mary Louise Parker are a perfectly normal couple in Red.

Turns out a number of people involved in a past Black Ops mission in Guatemala have also been turned into Swiss cheese lately, including a New York Times reporter, so Frank decides to look up the “old gang,” which includes mentor Joe (Freeman), Marvin (Malkovich) and Victoria (Mirren). Together, they untangle the plot which involves key US officials and takes them all across America, settling in Chicago for a political primary convention. (Actually, Red was mostly filmed in Toronto, with New Orleans being the only US location; good for the suffering economy there, one supposes.)

Are we willing to buy a bunch of older actors toting around machine guns and rocket launchers? Funnily enough, yes. Seasoned action hero Willis is easy to take as a retiree just trying to lead a “normal life” after all the killing he’s seen (and done). It’s not much of a stretch from playing crotchety old John McClane in the last Die Hard outing, actually. Parker brings her usual bug-eyed perplexity and wry humor to the role of Sarah (not much for her to actually do, since she doesn’t have the required killing skills). Malkovich is a hoot as a paranoid ex-CIA agent who fears cell phones, satellites and the Internet. Turns out Marvin was fed experimental LSD by the CIA for 11 years in a government “mind control” experiment. Marvin embodies the old slogan, “Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.” He’s delusional at times, but handy with a hand cannon.

They pick up Victoria (Mirren) at her stately country home; no longer working for MI6, she’s now tending her rose garden, focusing on table decorating, and only doing “the occasional hit” for old time’s sake. Sexy senior Helen Mirren with a sniper rifle? Hey, you have to see it to believe it.

Along the way, they also get help from former Russian agent Ivan Simanov (Brian Cox), a rival of Willis from the Cold War days. Ivan gets to serve up some of the more ruminative lines from Jon and Erich Hoeber’s script, talking about how “as you get older, things of the past don’t bother you as much.” Meaning he’s no longer interested in wasting Willis for whacking his Russian cousin back in the day; instead they can chuckle over it and do vodka shots together.

Still smitten with Victoria, Ivan helps the team break into CIA headquarters in Langley to recover files on the Guatemala mission. Their search leads to sleazebag defense contractor Alexander Dunning (Richard Dreyfus) who sells bad weapons to evil governments.

With the exception of Parker, ambitious young CIA agent William Cooper (LOTR’s Carl Urban) and scheming Vice President Robert Stanton (Nip/Tuck’s Julian McMahon), most of the cast are well into their 60s. Now, obviously that would be a problem in France, where asking people to work past the age of 60 quite often leads to rioting in the streets. But in Hollywood, there’s still a lot of pep left in the senior set. (Check out Michael Douglas still doing the Gordon Gekko thing, 20 years later.) Of course, a lot of the appeal of Red has to do with the novelty of oldsters packing heavy heat, blowing stuff up with abandon. But give ‘em credit: they pull off the action scenes better than a lot of young punks could. Mostly, what Willis, Freeman, Mirren, Malkovich and Cox bring to the party is a sense of dignity in aging (okay, maybe not Malkovich): they may be retired, but they’ve still got the moves, plus wisdom to boot. And, watching Red, you can’t help noticing these actors are enjoying every minute: something about perennial good guy Morgan Freeman pulling a silencer and zapping an agent who’s trying to get the drop on him seems to light up his face like a Christmas tree. Now, you could argue this is just more mindless Hollywood glorification of violence to sell tickets. But why shouldn’t the seniors get a crack at the action genre?

Grumpy old assassins: John Malkovich and Morgan Freeman have a fun time blowing up stuff in Red.

Grumpy old assassins: John Malkovich and Morgan Freeman have a fun time blowing up stuff in Red.

Robert Schwentke directs in the turbo-charged style of most action movies these days, which is to say he’s afraid you’ll pick up the remote control and change the channel at any time, so the scenes jump around like an A.D.H.D. preschooler. But this does help keep the audience interested, even if the back story on these characters is pretty skimpy.

Red was just one of a number of comic-generated flicks previewed at this year’s Comic Con in California. Many of the flicks seem to focus on implausible killing machines, whether it’s the little girl with the potty mouth and lethal knives in Kick-Ass, geeky Scott Pilgrim taking on his girlfriend’s ex-BFs (in Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World), or Angelina Jolie as an improbably fetching assassin in Salt. It seems every permutation of high-concept payback is ready for its close-up in the Hollywood sun. So who says the action genre is ready for retirement?