Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/18418
When It Comes To Weight Loss Surgery, You Have Options. When It Comes To Helping You Choose, And Information. We Give You Options f We’re Getting the Band Back Together Red (Rated R) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS Note: Bruce Willis is looking pretty good for someone born in 1955. Unfortunately hot Bruce Willis is not enough to entirely redeem Red (111 minutes), a movie that can’t commit to comic-book violence, realistic violence, romantic comedy, cool dialogue or rel- evant social commentary. Village Surgical Associates Has Been Named An American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Center of Excellence It works as an entertaining action movie with a few really punk-rock bat- tle sequences, but the violence is pretty toned down compared to the wild stunts featured in the original DC mini- series. There is one great experience- versus-youth fight, but the remaining action scenes are low on realism … a shot to the gut takes you out of the fight, but you can recover, have time to change and make it to rendezvous? Really? If I am ever shot in the stom- ach, I plan to scream a lot, pass out and then wake up in the hospital. There is an attempt to insert a romantic subplot to fill in the gaps around a conspiratorial CIA agents and punching Richard Dreyfuss, but it never quite works. Not so much because of the age difference between the leads, but because of the fact that the male lead could do much better than a helpless dewy-eyed frail chic with no real personality beyond “kinda quirky.” The dialogue is limp, with a few flashes of surreal genius that only serve to emphasize how lackluster the rest of it is. That’s not a criticism of the actors …they were great! But there is only so much Academy Award winners can do with shoddy material. Not only that, the concept of Retired: Extremely Dangerous begged for some subtle political commentary about the worth of individuals, how race and gender affect the value placed on the elderly, and lots of other important stuff that I don’t have room to mention here. They tried. It didn’t work (at least not for me). Dr. James Classen Dr. Leo Davidson If you are 100 lbs. or more overweight and want more information about bariatric surgical options (including gastric bypass, lap band and other procedures) please attend our upcoming educational forums: Wednesday, November 17th Wednesday, December 8th at 6:30 p.m. Cape Fear Valley Education Center For an appointment with Doctors Classen or Davidson or to reserve a seat at our FREE educational seminar, please call 910.323.2626 1841 Quiet Cove • Fayetteville, NC 28304 www.villagesurgical.com 24 UCW OCTOBER 27 - NOVEMBER 2, 2010 The star of the film is Frank Moses (Willis), a retired gentleman of leisure. At some point before the story begins, he begins stalking Sarah Ross (Mary- Louise Parker). She is pretty bored with her life anyway; although why she doesn’t take a karate class at the Y instead of encouraging a complete stranger to phone harass her is a bit of a mystery. After establishing that Frank lives by a strict routine (that involves reading bodice rippers but not watching television), he’s sent to Kansas City so he can connect with Sarah. Although she is not immediately on board, she ends up traveling around the country via some fairly unimaginative post card wipes (the only people who are allowed to use a wipe of any kind, ever, are George Lucas and bored dudes making family vacation clip videos). One of the first stops is New Orleans, where his CIA mentor Joe (Morgan Freeman, in a shamefully brief role) meets him. After some exposition from the CIA agents who are trying to track Frank (Karl Urban and Rebecca Pidgeon), the dynamic duo track down the man with some convenient information and a penchant for ghillie suits, Marvin (John Malkovich). This link in the information chain sends them to a guy called Gabriel Singer (Dexter’s Dad, AKA James Remar). And did I mention that somewhere in there they FINALLY grab some real talent? The “wetworks specialist” Victoria, (Helen Mirren) manages to inject an edge into an otherwise standard action plot. Overall it was pretty fun and family friendly even if it is a movie that doesn’t really stand out from the crowd. HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer COMMENTS? 484-6200 ext. 222 or editor@upandcomingweekly.com WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM