Red

            Red has a ridiculous amount of action and is meant for the elderly audience.  The 2010 film, directed by Robert Schwentke, stars big actors Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, and John Malkovich.  The type of film is action-comedy and is sort of based on the comic by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner.  Red takes place in many places in the U.S.

            Frank Moses lives peacefully alone in a pleasant neighborhood.  He is a retired CIA agent but keeps himself busy by talking to Sarah who is a phone agent working at his pension office.  All is going well until some young agents attempt to kill him in his home.  He takes them out without any problems and begins his journey to discover why he has been targeted for assassination.  Along the way, he picks up old CIA agent buddies and Sarah who at first resists because she thinks Frank has come to kidnap her.

            The story elements in this film make it ideal for an older audience.  First, the main characters are all in their 50s, 60s, and 80s. This automatically appeals to an older audience because they are familiar with the actors.  That is not to say that the actors cannot appeal to a younger audience, but an older audience will be more connected with the actors especially because of age.  Second, throughout the movie, the main characters always defeat the young characters.  For example, at the beginning of the movie, Willis defeats about four young and spry assassinators who are completely armed and protected.  Another example is when Frank beats up William Cooper, a relatively young CIA agent.  This appeals to an older audience because they like seeing someone their age defeating bad guys sort of how like in children’s movies it is often the children that succeed and the adults that fail.  Third, William Cooper refers to Frank as “grandpa” instead of being formal and calling him by his name.  The film is reminding us that the movie is about older people and that older people can prevail against their less “matured” counterparts.

            The music played during the scenes where the main characters were in action was geared toward an older generation and was also terrible.  The music during these scenes was always classic rock.  Classic rock is from an older generation, so it appeals to that type of audience.  Also, classic rock is usually used to signify that the character the song is applied to is super cool.  Now for why the music was terrible is because the music tried to empower the scenes by showing just how badass the main characters were.  What actually happened was that it felt like the film went over the top and was constantly shoving down our throats the fact that it was an action movie and the characters were badass.

            Red was not good but was not bad either.  The film was obviously meant for an older audience because of the story elements and the music.