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marinessEscaped briefly to see Red yesterday. Fun film. But two points hit me:
1. Once again, violent death is often played for laughs. This happens so often now in films that I often miss it, but this time, as the audience burst out laughing over one explosion sending a body reeling into the sky (to be fair, this was accompanied by a visual weapons joke) I found myself ever so mildly uncomfortable.
I don't have an answer for this -- the violence in Red is so ridiculous and frequently cartoonish (particularly in a scene where we are expected to believe that a single well aimed bullet can stop a bazooka because John Malkovich is aiming it) that we are not meant to take it seriously, and we don't. Cue in discussion of whether or not this desensitizing of violence is why we can sit back relatively passively watching footage of Afghanistan bombs, followed by general concessions that we can't change the system.
(On a related note, for once, when a film introduces an elderly black man dying of cancer, played by Morgan Freeman or not, it might be nice not to go in the expected direction, Hollywood. Just saying.)
2. The one bit I really did like: When Helen Mirren takes off her ridiculous high heels for nice comfy strong boots that you can easily shoot people in. Nice, film. Nice.
But as I said, a decent enough caper film. It worked solely because of the casting – we can believe this only because it's Bruce Willis in the main role – but, it did work.
And now back to reality for me.
1. Once again, violent death is often played for laughs. This happens so often now in films that I often miss it, but this time, as the audience burst out laughing over one explosion sending a body reeling into the sky (to be fair, this was accompanied by a visual weapons joke) I found myself ever so mildly uncomfortable.
I don't have an answer for this -- the violence in Red is so ridiculous and frequently cartoonish (particularly in a scene where we are expected to believe that a single well aimed bullet can stop a bazooka because John Malkovich is aiming it) that we are not meant to take it seriously, and we don't. Cue in discussion of whether or not this desensitizing of violence is why we can sit back relatively passively watching footage of Afghanistan bombs, followed by general concessions that we can't change the system.
(On a related note, for once, when a film introduces an elderly black man dying of cancer, played by Morgan Freeman or not, it might be nice not to go in the expected direction, Hollywood. Just saying.)
2. The one bit I really did like: When Helen Mirren takes off her ridiculous high heels for nice comfy strong boots that you can easily shoot people in. Nice, film. Nice.
But as I said, a decent enough caper film. It worked solely because of the casting – we can believe this only because it's Bruce Willis in the main role – but, it did work.
And now back to reality for me.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-23 10:15 pm (UTC)Was it any good?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-24 02:00 pm (UTC)