Red

*** - Bruce Willis and a gaggle of aging film stars swing for the fences in this 2010 action-comedy film based on a Warren Ellis graphic novel but end up hitting a high lazy fly just short of the warning track in left that would be easily shagged by even the most lackadaisical of dreadlock-wearing Hispanic outfielders. Willis plays a lonely retired CIA operative who is perpetrating pension fraud by tearing up his checks when he receives them and calling the main pension service office in Kansas City in order to have bizarre rambling conversations with Mary-Louise Parker (from the acclaimed HBO show “Weeds” which I have never seen and have no real interest in because it seems like kind of a chick thing) and ends up on the lam after a home invasion by a highly trained and motivated, albeit somewhat inept, assassination squad. He heads over to KC and kidnaps Parker (who he claims is also in danger) and then meets up with and recruits to his cause a number of oldsters he has worked with or against in the past, including Brian Cox, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich, Ernest Borgnine (who I am shocked is still alive) and Morgan Freemandle. Light action, lots of gunplay, a fairly large number of romantic subplots, and quite a bit of jokey dialogue ensue, along with a storyline involving the Vice President, the FBI, Guatamala, and a badly aging Richard Dreyfuss. It’s a fairly entertaining film, but nothing to write home about.