Review: "Motherless Brooklyn"

“Half the city is getting a ride on one of his horses.”
                                   --Paul Randolph

Man, there’s a lot of great stuff going on in “Motherless Brooklyn.” Splendid acting. Terrific cinematography and music. Spot-on period costumes, cars and backdrops. Snappy dialogue and an intricate plot.

It’s not a great movie, but it’s a damned interesting one.

This gorgeous and haunting crime drama, written, directed and starring Edward Norton, is like a beautiful chess board someone has set up with intricately carved pieces. You admire the handiwork that went into them and anticipate how they will be put to use.

Then you get ready to play, and they dump two more sets of pieces onto the board. What was a highfalutin parlor game becomes something of a chaotic mess.

Based on the novel by Jonathan Lethem, it’s set in 1950s New York City along the line dividing the slums, lowlife gumshoes and seedy jazz clubs from the skyscrapers, moneymen and spheres of politics. Norton is Lionel Essrog, the fifth man on the totem pole at a five-man private investigation firm who stumbles from the low end into the high.

Lionel is, by his own description, a mess. He has severe tics and outbursts of embarrassing words or sounds -- "if!" is the most common -- which today we would call Tourette syndrome. But back then it got him labeled as “spastic” or “freakshow,” and that’s by his friends.

“Bailey is what my head calls me,” Lionel explains, and many of his unwilling pronouncements are self-criticism using that nickname. He grew up in a rough foster home, protected by an older boy, Frank Minna (Bruce Willis), who later became a war hero, his boss and solitary backer.

Lionel’s brain makes all sorts of weird demands on him, like how objects must be ordered in a certain way or provoke another mortifying event. But it also gifts him with a tremendous memory and eye for detail. These are the tools he will bring to bear after Frank is murdered by some toughs sent by the big boys downtown.

The first third of the film is essentially a straight snooper story, and we are bedazzled and befuddled as Lionel travels from place to place, meets new people, takes pictures, tails cars and uncovers info. It’s shot in bright light and vibrant colors.

In the middle section, director Norton turns on the film noir look and mood, the action shifts largely to nighttime and shadows bend into the frame at odd angles. Lionel impersonates a reporter, asks lots of questions, inserts himself into the action and tries to assemble the pieces from the first part -- without much success.

The final act is the most vibrant, but also the most bewildering. There are shades of “Chinatown” by way of “Rain Man.” I enjoyed the hell out of it even as I struggled to make sense of it.

Other actors and story elements float in and out the film, sometimes disappearing for long stretches. The other three guys at the L&L investigation company -- Bobby Cannavale, Dallas Roberts and Ethan Suplee --  which also doubles as a car service when times are slow. Leslie Mann briefly turns up as Frank’s gun moll wife, as beautiful and hard as a nickel-plated .38.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw plays Laura Rose, a beautiful “colored girl” and smart lawyer who would seem to be at the center of whatever Frank was digging up. Cherry Jones as a crusading community organizer fighting the city’s race to convert working-class black neighborhoods into pristine public works. Michael K. Williams as a smooth and tortured jazz man. Willem Dafoe as a seemingly crazed fellow who hangs around the back of important rooms, says a lot and knows even more.

Lurking over the entire film like a threatening cloud is Alec Baldwin as Moses Randolph, a storied public servant who has labored to transform the city for 30 years. He is the commissioner of parks, construction and buildings, planning, and seemingly any other office he wants. Mayors and other elected officials come and go; Mo is eternal.

It’s a grandiose performance by Baldwin, who seems physically immense, like a charging buffalo shaved down and squeezed into a suit. He has a great scene where he and Lionel finally hash things out in a bath house, where Mo reveals his true nature while he describes what having power is really like.

Having true power, Mo explains, means when somebody else has an idea you don’t like, or you just don’t like the person who has it, then that idea goes away. He sees himself as a builder and a doer who denigrates the thinkers whose lofty dreams are never realized.

It’s a scarily mesmerizing soliloquy, not to mention a well-aimed dart at the mentality of those in real life holding the reins of power.

I sat back and marveled at “Motherless Brooklyn,” the keen way it evokes a place and time while effortless throwing off great writing like a description of being “calm as Hindu cows.” I can’t say I was completely engaged by the film; my guess is most people will find it confusing and scattershot.

But I was never less than fascinated.

Video review: "Glass"

“Glass” was made for $20 million, which must be some sort of low-end record for a modern superhero flick. Heck, I think even Roger Corman’s 1994 version of “Fantastic Four” must’ve cost more.

(Note to editor: this is what’s known as “artistic hyperbole.” Corman never spent more than a quarter-mil on anything. – CL)

To be true, nobody flies through the air or emits energy beams from their eyes or turns into an orange pile of rocks. But that’s really the point of the movie from writer/director M. Night Shyamalan, who with this films wraps up an ad-hoc trilogy that began with 2000’s “Unbreakable.”

“Glass” is less of a straight-up action flick than an exploration of the superhero myth. It posits three men who believe they have extraordinary abilities against a disbelieving world where skepticism and gaslighting reign.

(Another note to editor: “gaslighting” means using trickery to convince someone their beliefs or mindset are unreliable.)

David Dunn (Bruce Willis) is nearly impervious to physical harm, using his day job running a small security company to hunt criminals. Lately he’s chasing Kevin (James McAvoy), an unstable man with split personalities, dominated by one who calls himself the Beast, and exhibits extraordinary strength and sadism.

The third wheel – quite literally for the first half of the movie – is Elijah Price (Samuel Jackson), an evil genius who goes by the moniker “Mr. Glass” because of his extraordinarily fragile bones. He’s been incarcerated for the past two decades, sitting in a wheelchair in a seemingly catatonic state.

For a while all three men are jailed and treated by a psychiatrist (Sarah Paulson) who specializes in addressing superhero delusions. Using evidence and therapeutic techniques, she works to convince the trio that they are actually normal humans – because there’s no such thing as superheroes.

We’ll see how that turns out.

“Glass” is a much more cerebral superhero movie than we’re used to, but I think a satisfying one. It takes a few liberties with things that happened in the prior movies, not to mention basic logic. But maybe rearranging reality is Shyamalan’s super-power.

Bonus features are quite extravagant. There are a dozen deleted scenes and an alternate opening. I count another 12 making-of documentary shorts, ranging from the film’s special effects and sound design to early storyboards.

Two of the more interesting are “Glass Decoded,” which unveils some continuity “secrets” of the trilogy, and “Connecting the Glass Universe,” exploring Shyamalan’s concept of a comic book movie grounded in reality.

Movie:



Extras:

Review: "Glass"

I don’t think when “Unbreakable” came out 19 years ago anyone believed it would become a trilogy. I don’t think even M. Night Shyamalan thought of that notion when he first came up with the idea for “Split” from 2016.

(He claims otherwise, but creative types love to tell you they had a plan all along.)

But now it’s all come together, strangely but rather satisfyingly, in “Glass,” which wears the clothes of a supernatural action/thriller but is really more of an exploration of the modern superhero myth.

You may remember that in “Split,” James McAvoy played Kevin, a man with dozens of personalities, some of them friendly, many of them not. They were dominated by the Beast, a mad, feral manimal who exhibited extraordinary abilities -- including bending steel bars, climbing walls and surviving shotgun blasts.

In “Unbreakable,” it was Bruce Willis’ modest security guard, David Dunn, who discovered that he had similar abilities after surviving unscathed from a horrible train wreck the killed everyone else aboard. This also contained the revelation that (sorry, no spoiler warnings after nearly two decades) Samuel L. Jackson’s Elijah Price, a genius comic book dealer burdened by a fragile skeleton, had rigged the train wreck to prove that superheroes really do exist.

Flash forward to present day, and Dunn is still secretly chasing bad guys with the help of his admiring son (Spencer Treat Clark), running a family security business by day. Lately they’ve been chasing Horde, a mysterious criminal who kidnaps and brutally slays teenage girls. You might have guessed this is the handiwork of the Beast.

Events transpire to bring all three men together in Raven Hill, a hospital for the mentally ill. Elijah, who dubs himself Mr. Glass, has been incarcerated there all along, kept heavily sedated most of the time.

You may think it odd that the person whose name is the film’s title spends the first half speechless and motionless, vegging out in his wheelchair while sadistic orderlies taunt and tease him. Jackson’s name even appears last in the credits.

Running this little cuckoo’s nest is Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson), a psychiatrist who specializes in treating the delusion of people who think they’re superheroes. She undercuts the mythology of comic books and works to convince the trio that their supposed abilities are imaginings spurred by past trauma: David’s childhood near-drowning; Kevin’s abuse at the hands of his mother; Elijah’s brilliant mind being trapped in such a breakable body.

For a time, they start to believe her. The Beast goes into remission and David starts to question his past experiences. Elijah still just stares woodenly at the floor.

Of course, we don’t believe any of this. Eventually the men are going to get the chance to prove they’re the real deal… right?

McAvoy has the flashiest part, flexing and growling like a demon is trying to pop out of his skin. I kept worrying he was going to give himself an aneurism. His fight scenes with Willis are curiously restrained; the older man seems more perturbed than frightened.

Anya Taylor-Joy is brought back from “Split,” though this movie doesn’t really know what to do with her. Charlayne Woodard plays Elijah’s mother, horrified at his deeds while unable to hide her pride at such an extraordinary child.

The first two films featured twist endings and “Glass” is no exception. I doubt even if you’re looking forward you’ll guess what it is. I can’t say I found it the most plausible thing in the world. But then this is movie that posits that ordinary-looking people can flip cars over.

Video review: "Looper"

Ambitious but not entirely successful, “Looper” is much more than your standard science fiction action flick.
Writer/director Rian Johnson (“Brick”) has crafted a film that’s less concerned with the mechanics of time travel than with the ramifications it has on its characters. It also has one of the boldest casting movies of the year, with Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing the same man separated by 30 years in age.

Joe is an assassin, or “looper,” living in Kansas City circa 2044. The loopers kill victims sent back in time by a crime syndicate that runs everything in the future. Their careers are prosperous but brief – retirement comes when the victim who shows up to be assassinated is themselves, three decades into the future.

Unfortunately for Young Joe, Old Joe has apparently been preparing carefully for this day and manages to escape. This sets off a nasty temporal snafu, as well as pitting the two of them against each other and the entire looper operation.

Eventually, the story leads to a lonely farm where a protective young mother (Emily Blunt) guards her son Cid (Pierce Gagnon) from the world at large – for good reason, as it turns out.

“Looper” is bursting with originality, but the movie seems to spin sidewise from itself and lose focus. Eventually it all gets tied up in a satisfying way, even if the journey getting there isn’t always a smooth one.

The film is getting a terrific video release piled high with cool features, and you don’t have to pay top dollar for the Blu-ray edition to get lots of goodies.

The DVD comes with a feature-length commentary track by Johnson, and also includes Gordon-Levitt and Blunt. The best commentaries usually include both filmmakers and cast. The DVD also boasts an animated trailer, five deleted scenes with commentary, and two making-of featurettes about creating the story and the musical score.

Go for the Blu-ray, and you receive 17 more deleted scenes with commentary and another featurette, “The Science of Time Travel.”

Movie: 3 stars out of four
Extras: 3.5 stars

Video review: "Moonrise Kingdom"

In 1965 on the remote New England island of New Penzanze, 12-year-old misfits Sam Shakusky and Suzy Bishop have run away together. Sam (Jared Gilman) and Suzy (Kara Hayward) both feel alienated in their homes -- Sam is an orphan who more or less lives at the Khaki Scouts camp, while Suzy barely gets any attention in the ramshackle house where her distracted parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand) oversee a triplet of overactive boys.

Their escape sets the cloistered island folk into a tizzy, as they search desperately for the pair before they ... what, exactly? It's a tiny island, so they don't really have anywhere to go. Their journey is about running away rather than going somewhere.

The latest from filmmaker Wes Anderson ("The Royal Tenenbaums") is familiar to any who's watched his twee little whimsical movies -- disaffected characters speaking in deliberately flat cadences, punctuated by quaint snippets of obscure music, and highly stylized sets and costumes that make the whole thing feel like the inside of a precocious middle schooler's diorama.

"Moonrise" doesn't add anything new to the mix, so the result is a stale and turgid addition to the Anderson menagerie. After a career of making very personalized movies, this registers as an unattractive wallow in self-indulgence.

Bonus features, which are identical for Blu-ray and DVD editions, are rather modest. There's a making-of documentary, a tour of the fictional island, and a set tour hosted by Bill Murray.

Movie: 1.5 stars out of four
Extras: 2 stars

Review: "Looper"

"Looper" starts out with an audacious and novel premise, develops it in a logical and satisfying manner, and then sort of spins sideways with it.

For awhile I worried I was witnessing a non-comedy version of "Funny People," another film that started out bold and promising, and then we watched it slowly and painfully slide off a cliff with an extended visit to the main character's ex-girlfriend's house.

Something quite similar happens here, as about an hour into the story Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) finds himself on a lonely farm where he encounters a sullen young boy named Cid (Pierce Gagnon) and his hard-bitten, protective mother, Sara (Emily Blunt). Joe is a looper, an assassin who kills victims who have been sent back in time by mysterious criminal syndicates 30 years into the future.

His misadventures have brought him to this farmhouse, and at first I thought this encounter was merely a diversion in a harrowing journey in which Joe tries to solve a vexing time-travel puzzle. But it turns out this farm is not the story's way station but its destination, and everything else that transpires is centered on Cid and Sara.

I felt like the movie had lost me, as the dynamic involving these three characters comes to dominate the tale, which had been focused on the dynamic between Joe and another important character (more on that in a minute).

But eventually writer/director Rian Johnson brings things all together. The ending is not entirely unexpected, but as we sit and ponder it we realize no other finale would have made sense.

"Looper" is a challenging film, grandly ambitious and demanding of its audience. This means Johnson treats them with intelligence, but also that he knows he will leave some percentage of them scratching their heads when it's over.

Johnson relies on inference and suggestion rather than just showing you the tease and then the payoff. For example, at one point when Cid is throwing a temper tantrum, Sara runs out of the room and into her closet, where she has a massive thick steel safe embedded. She climbs into it and closes the door, and we get the distinct impression this ritual has been performed many times before. What possible reason could she have for this strange behavior? Eventually we learn, but it's not a quick or obvious deduction.

As assassins go, loopers are not the highly-trained and sophisticated killers we usually see in movies. In fact, they ply their trade in a rather sad and boring way. They are told when to show up in a deserted place, with a crude shotgun called a blunderbuss trained on a certain spot covered by a tarp. The victim appears there, already bound and gagged and helpless, and the looper blows them away. Their payment, in neatly-ordered bars of silver, is even conveniently strapped to the soon-to-be-dead guy's back. Basically, they just pull a trigger and dump the body.

Like many of his fellow loopers, Joe is living the high life in a dystopian future that they know for certain is bookended, at least for them. He wears fancy clothes and does designer drugs ("drops" that you put in your eyes) and drives a flashy red sports car -- all things that most people can't do in 2044 Kansas City. Most of the population are vagrants who live on the streets.

Without it ever explicitly being stated, it seems clear something horrendous has happened between now and 2044 -- even more so than between that time and the future from where looper victims are sent.

Technology seems to have gotten churned up, with communications no further advanced than today. Cars are still around, seemingly the very same ones from 2012 that have been retrofitted with solar panels and alternative fuel lines. The criminals carry one of two types of weapons, powerful blunderbusses like Joe or enormous revolvers called "gats." They favor long coats and mid-20th century ties and apparel, and it seems like the mid-21st century is a crude amalgam of the cultural leftovers of the two previous centuries.

Loopers know their career, and their lives, are finite because one day the victim that shows up will be themselves, 30 years older. They get a big payoff -- gold bars instead of silver -- and forced retirement, knowing they have three decades to live and plenty of money to live high while doing it. This is called "closing your loop."

Unfortunately for Joe, his loop (played by Bruce Willis) has obviously spent his time preparing for this day. Old Joe easily overpowers young Joe, which puts them both on the run. Young Joe is desperate to kill his "loop" and get back in the good graces of Abe (Jeff Daniels), the boss man who was sent back from the future to oversee the loopers. Old Joe keeps making overtures to young Joe to try to convince him there are bigger forces at work here, a mission that will eventually lead them all back to that farm.

Gordon-Levitt wears special prosthetics and contact lenses in an attempt to make him more physically resemble Willis. The effect is arresting but not entirely successful. He doesn't so much look like a young Bruce Willis as a young third person unrelated to either of them. For example, they give Gordon-Levitt thick, arching eyebrows that Willis has never possessed.

The relationship between the two Joes should be the fulcrum of the story, and for a time it is. Johnson shows us flash-forward sequences of what happens to Joe in the intervening 30 years, and why Old Joe is doing what he does. He has very good reasons and is torn up inside about what he feels he has to do, but that doesn't keep it from being terrible, dirty deeds.

Other story elements flitter around the edges. There's a new syndicate boss in the future referred to only as The Rainmaker who becomes important without ever being seen. There are also genetic mutations that about 10 percent of the population has allowing them to do very minor telekinesis.

One brilliant story element is that the future is not set, so once the two loopers exist in the same time zone, freaky-deaky things can transpire. For example, anything that happens to the young looper becomes a part of the older looper's persona -- instantly altering their memory and even their body. In a horrifying early sequence, a friend of Joe's (Paul Dano) lets his loop get away. Then we witness some truly terrifying things happen to the older man, which is how we know what is happening to his younger version.

Joe, a sharp cookie, uses this knowledge to his advantage when his own loop is on the run, finding a way to communicate with him that is both inspired and depraved.

I don't mind saying that "Looper" has been one of the films I've most been looking forward to this year. I experienced a small tinge of disappointment because I didn't come out of it with an immediate rush of satisfaction, and the movie didn't have as much emotional punch as I would've hoped. Joe's story is a compelling one, but it feels like we're observing it rather than being engaged in it.

But I think this is the sort of film that bears repeated viewings to fully understand and embrace its complexities. I'm reminded of Steven Spielberg's "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence," a movie that demands our respect more than our adoration. I give "Looper" for its boldness -- this is way, way more than a standard sci-fi/action flick.

3 stars out of four

Review: "Moonrise Kingdom"

I go back and forth on Wes Anderson. He's a very specific kind of filmmaker, to the point that there is now a recognizable "Wes Anderson style" that is much derided but little imitated. (Do a YouTube search to view some fun-poking examples.)

From the disaffected characters who speak their dialogue in deliberately flat cadences, to the oddball time-warping fashion sense, to the now-obligatory reliance on obscure pieces of music to punctuate and comment on the proceedings, Anderson's films are stylistic carbon copies of each other, merely swapping out storylines and characters (though many of the same actors reappear time and again).

The problem with that is there's a dread sense of sameness to his movies. It's like going to a bunch of different restaurants and ordering the exact same meal. There will be some variations in flavor, texture and certainly in quality, but you walk in knowing what you're going to get.

I liked "Rushmore," and liked "The Royal Tenenbaums" a lot, but "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" was so wretchedly unwatchable I didn't even bother seeing his next one, "The Darjeeling Limited."

Personally, I thought the best marriage of Anderson's aesthetic with the material was the stop-motion animation gem, "Fantastic Mr. Fox." Perhaps it was just because using fake furry critters instead of humans represented the first distinct break from his previous body of work, and that made it seem fresh.
His newest, "Moonrise Kingdom," is a return to the rut.

The sole variation here is that the spotlight is on children, while the adult characters populate the background. It's 1965 and on the isolated New Penzanze Island off of New England, 12-year-olds Sam Shakusky and Suzy Bishop decide to run away together. Of course since it's an island, they don't really have anywhere to go, but it's more a journey about rejecting where they come from than anywhere they're heading.

Sam is an orphan living with foster parents, but actually spends most of his time at Camp Ivanhoe, a summer camp for the Khaki Scouts of North America. The man/boy commander, Scout Master Randy Ward (Edward Norton), acknowledges that Sam was the least popular scout, but is still chagrined by the resignation letter he leaves behind.

Suzy has three younger brothers, and lives in a rambling multi-story house called Summer's End with her three younger brothers and parents (Frances McDormand and Bill Murray), who are both distracted lawyers. Suzy wears neon-colored eye shadow (apparently impervious to the elements) and loves to read books where girls go on adventures in fantasy lands or on alien planets.

After meeting at a church play a year earlier, they've been corresponding by mail and planning their escape, which throws the entire island into a state. Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis), whose position appears to be nautical but represents the only semblance of police power, is brought in to lead the search with the help of the Khakis. Hovering around the edges of the story is Tilda Swinton as Social Services -- that's how she refers to herself, no name -- threatening to whisk Sam off to an orphanage.

Sam and Suzy are played by newcomers Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward, respectively. They both seem like engaging performers, but it's hard to judge their true talent since Anderson (who co-wrote the screenplay with Roman Coppola) requires them to say all their lines in unemotive declarations. They always sound like they're announcing themselves rather than talking to each other.

(Both are also rather mush-mouthed, and I often struggled to understand what they were saying. I suppose you could make the argument this makes them sound more like authentic kids, but verisimilitude has never been Anderson's bag.)

My biggest problem with "Moonrise Kingdom" is that it's a coming-of-age story in which both the children already behave like cynical, melancholic adults. If they're this jaded and disconnected at 12, how are they going to stand each other at 42?

Consider this exchange of dialogue after a violent encounter with the other scouts, and the Khaki mascot pooch has been slain with an arrow:

Sam: They got him right through the neck.
Suzy: Was he a good dog?
Sam: (pregnant pause) Who's to say?

That sure doesn't sound like any kid I knew. For that matter, why does Sam wear a coonskin hat, despite it being the scorching finale of summer? How come he smokes a pipe? Why is Suzy obsessed with Benjamin Britten's "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra," in which different pieces of symphonic music are layered upon each other one by one as a learning exercise?

I think these elements exist in the movie simply because Anderson finds them delightfully quirky, and includes them simply for the sheer juxtaposition of eclectic bits ‘n’ pieces. He's like a hipster standing at the wardrobe of pop culture, plucking out things he likes and trying them on.

Often the ensemble is a genuinely innovative collage of colors and patterns, a bold new way of looking at old things. Sometimes, as with "Moonrise Kingdom," the result is so blastedly twee and self-satisfied that we just want to sigh, pat the movie on the head and tell it to run along.

1.5 stars out of four

Review: "Red"

"Red" is an agreeable piffle, a fun action/comedy that's silly without being moronic. When I found out it was about retired CIA agents being hunted down by their former agency, I immediately thought a better title would have been "Old Spies Like Us."

"Red" actually stands for "Retired and Extremely Dangerous" -- the designation given to characters played by Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich and Helen Mirren. They range in age from Willis' Frank Moses, who's probably in his mid-50s, to Freeman's Joe Matheson, who's 80 and dying of liver cancer to boot.

Freeman is aged up convincingly and looks a bit frail, but Willis is lean and sleek, and still appears capable of laying down some serious hurt. Why would the CIA forcibly retire someone seemingly still in his prime? The question is never asked or answered, but this is not the sort of movie to dally with logistics.

The film is based on a graphic novel by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner, though director Robert Schwentke and screenwriter siblings Jon and Erich Hoeber ditch the gritty tone for a light fun 'n' games feel. The comic book centered on Frank, but the movie adds new characters to make it an ensemble.

Malkovich plays Marvin Boggs, a wild ex-agent hiding out in the Florida swamps, whose paranoia about the government spying on him is tempered by the fact that he actually was secretly drugged with daily doses of LSD. Marvin has a nice bit where he squares off gunslinger-style with an opponent wielding a rocket launcher, and he shoots the missile out of the air.

Mirren is a delight as Victoria, a British retiree who breaks up her routine of gardening and cross-stitching with the occasional assassination contract. Mirren is kittenish and playful, and hell on wheels behind the eyesight of a large-caliber rifle.

Joe, meanwhile, fritters away his waning days in a New Orleans retirement home, ogling the nurses.

Frank lives in drab suburbia, putting up Christmas decorations simply because that's what his neighbors do. He receives monthly pension checks from the government that he rips up so he can call the accounting department to complain that they never arrived. This allows him to speak with Sarah, a worker drone with dreams of an exciting life.

Frank is sweet on her and longs for a normal life -- until a squad of black-ops types turn up at his home and try to kill him.

Sarah is played by Mary Louise-Parker in a turn so vibrant and likeable that it doesn't occur to us that her character is completely unnecessary to the story. After being kidnapped by Frank -- he figures if the government is gunning for him, they'll target Sarah, too -- she spends most of the movie literally standing around in the background while Frank, Victoria, Joe and Marvin ply their violent trade.

The plot is a twisting affair that you need not pay much attention to -- something to do with some nasty business down in Guatemala long ago. It's just an excuse to set up action scenes and humorous encounters.

Other figures in the mix include Richard Dreyfuss as a wicked arms dealer; Brian Cox as Frank's old Russian adversary; and Karl Urban as a young CIA agent tasked with taking down Frank, and finds himself getting schooled.

"Red" reminded me a bit of "Sneakers," a 1992 caper with Robert Redford about a bunch of washed-up, written-off spooks who get together for a new job. Both are well-made escapist entertainment, signifying nothing other than a good time.

3 stars out of four