Red (***)

This is kind of like a cross between True Lies and Space Cowboys. The one because it involves a regular guy (Bruce Willis) who turns out to be a secret agent, much to the surprise of the woman he loves. The other because it’s about a bunch of older folks (Willis being the youngest) who reunite for a new mission. The old folks include four Oscar winners—Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Richard Dreyfuss, and Ernest Borgnine, the hardest-working 93-year-old in show business. Adapted from a comic-book series by Warren Ellis, Red has the same tongue-in-cheek vibe as both of those older films, though the action scenes bring it closer to True Lies.

Willis plays a retiree who pretends to lose his government checks in the mail just so he can flirt with the kindly bureaucrat on the phone (Mary-Louise Parker). When he shows up in her Kansas City apartment claiming he’s ex-CIA and she’s in danger, she can’t quite believe it. So he has to kidnap her in order to save her. Not the best first date she’s had, although, she observes wryly, not the worst. Parker is as sweet and light here as she is hard-edged in her other 2010 role in Solitary Man. Her I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening reactions bring out the humor in these scenes. It’s too bad the movie rushes forward to get to all the firepower.

What seems fresh in the first half devolves into formula, although it’s certainly fun to watch Helen Mirren pumping a machine gun in an evening gown. Still, it’s only a matter of time before Parker’s character is referred to as “the girl,” and you won’t be able to shake the feeling you’ve seen this before. John Malkovich plays one of those wacky sidekick characters like Doc in Back in to the Future. On the whole, Red is very slightly better than the average film of its type, not as good as its stellar cast, or as it thinks it is.

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