Review and Analysis of the Film RED - Assignment Example

? The film ‘RED’ by director Robert Schwentke revolves around the story of Frank Moses, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) black-ops agent who is on the run after having gone through an unexpected assassination attempt on his life. The film opens on a typical day that the retired Moses goes through. It can be described as a dull suburban life where the highlight of his existence centers on his telephone conversations with Sarah Ross, an employee for the pension services. The two easily struck a connection which bounds on a budding romance except that they have never met each other in person. They both have no idea on who the person on the other line is and maintains a somewhat mundane talk on an avocado plant Frank is trying to grow and the romance novels that Sarah is obsessed about. Frank reveals that he will soon be in Kansas where Sarah leaves and would like to meet up and the latter is hesitant on whether or not facing each other would be such a good idea. Then, all plans change as Frank was caught in the midst of his life being in danger and has to leave the suburban life he had to imitate in order to find out who is after him and what the hit is all about. The depth of their relationship, unknown to Sarah, has become a source of her life also being in jeopardy and so Frank had to induce her to come with him and embark on their unanticipated adventure. Frank, together with Joe, Marvin and Victoria are marked ‘RED’ by the CIA which stands for Retired and Extremely Dangerous. The film, with its unconventional plot, incorporating romance, espionage and suspense necessarily has social-psychological perspectives throughout its course. The dynamics of the characters and how they develop as the plot thickens gives a wider outlook on how people, thrown at surprising situations, respond including how they react to one another. The movie would leave, on a more academic understanding, the appreciation of how the principles of deindividuation, cognitive dissonance and self-fulfilling prophecies play in the characters of RED. Chang (2008) writes that Deindividuation is the term used by Festinger, Newcomb and Pepitone to illustrate how a person reacts when he is within a group. They reveal that because of the group, the person is able to foster what could be an unusual behavior for him when he is not included in the crowd. One’s personal identity gets mixed and he ultimately losses it. Corollary to this, Diener presents that the group creates the sense of anonymity and this allows for them to go beyond what are commonly socially acceptable and this has a direct connection with the mass of people included within the group. This means that the bigger the group then the greater it is for chances of anonymity and the consequent deindividuation. People become more uninhibited as the group expands and the fear of disapproval becomes less and less relevant. The social-psychological principle of deindividuation can be seen in a number of ways in the movie ‘RED.’ From the opening scenes of the film, the audience sees Frank as this typical guy perhaps on his early retirement but without any family members living with him. He goes outside to take out the trash then a 360-degree view of his surroundings show that all of the other houses around his look one and the same. It was depicting cookie cutter reality in a manner of speaking. Additionally, since it was Christmas time, everybody had Christmas decors on their front yards. This propelled him to follow suit and he arranged for a snowman and some other knickknacks to blend in. This created in his mind the sense that no one will be able to tell the difference that he is no ordinary neighbor and also fulfill his personal sense of belongingness and compliance to maintain anonymity. The change in behavior can also be attributed as the story progressed and Frank reunites with his other colleagues. As the group grows larger in size when Joe, Marvin, Victoria and Marvin also enter the picture, the plan that Frank has concocted has become even more ludicrous and impossible. First, when Marvin has become a part of the group, since he was also a target of the CIA, the two of them became aware that their next move was to infiltrate the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. This would not have been feasible or even remotely imaginable had they not approached and sought the help of Ivan, the token character representing the typical Russian state enemy on the film, who had all the underground security codes and passes that will get them into the tightly secured premises. Though the group, in its entirety, would probably not equate to a crowd, its increase also meant the shedding of the reticence of the main character. This was the deindividuation process that Frank showed. The later scenes would actually lead him to execute the assassination plot turned abduction of the vice president of the country all made possible because he had the help of his friends. Cognitive dissonance was another social-psychological principle that is quite apparent in the movie. The condition arises when a person has two conflicting cognitions and he has to change one and to do so would involve altering it. Grounded firmly on Festinger’s theory, which is planted on the objective perspective of communication theory, cognitive dissonance is primarily concerned that “people are more comfortable with consistency than inconsistency” (Kowol n.d., p.3). There are four groups that could divide major cognitive dissonance arranged into selective exposure, postdecision dissonance, minimal justification and hypocrisy induction (Kowol, n.d.). These on their own are elaborate topics that yield many good examples to further elucidate what they signify and they can only be seen in the actions of the characters in the movie. Frank’s character is in the process of grasping that his life has changed and that he is on his way to actively seek a normal life as he had hoped for. The dissonance in his cognitions of the life he has and the life he had known has always been a conflict in him. Though he has long been a retiree, he still keeps his high-powered firearms not only in his house stealthily hidden, but also in a storage facility shown before he abducted the vice president. He opened the pull-up door and in it were high caliber firepower and ammunitions which Marvin enthusiastically gathered. There was selective exposure to information on the first part of the film as Frank completely cut himself off from the CIA and all his other friends but failed to make new connections. However, there was no postdecision dissonance as he was comfortable with every decision he made without exception. This included forcing Sarah to leave with him and join in on their schemes. But this can be attributed to Victoria and the story of how she shot a lover just to prove her loyalty. The revelation of Ivan that when she shot her he knew she still loved her, otherwise she would have shot him in the head, showed that there was in a sense a cognitive dissonance when Victoria decided to spare his life. Minimal justification can best be understood in Sarah and how it took her some time to grasp Frank’s character. At first she did not believe him but thereafter it was even her who intimated William Cooper on his behalf when they were in the interrogation room. Hypocrisy induction can be perceived in the interaction between Frank and Cooper. The latter was hell-bent on following his orders. Frank shares that he understands since he had the same blind obedience and ambition when he was in the service. Cooper’s choice to help him in the end meant that those words had an effect on him and ergo he was induced to go along with it. Finally, self-fulfilling prophecies is a social-psychological principle that was not evident in ‘RED.’ Smith, Jussim, Eccles, VanNoy, Madon & Palumbo (1998) defines that “A self-fulfilling prophecy occurs when a perceiver’s originally false belief about a target is behaviorally confirmed by the target” (p.531). Unlike the other two principles, this was not evidently shown in the movie since the protagonists has proven themselves time and again to go against all the inherent misconceptions of their adversaries. Cooper never thought that the mission to dispose of Frank would prove to be a difficult undertaking. However, the tenacity of the group and their cunning in executing their plans to perfection allowed them to control the situation all throughout. The CIA underestimated the capacity of a handful of old retirees to wreak havoc and cause the presidency bid of a corrupt and tainted man in Robert Stanton. They were dismissed as a bunch of crazies and has-beens without capacity to defend their lives. But they proved them to be wrong each and every time. Even Cooper was a contradiction to the principle of self-fulfilling prophecies. His superior, W, never doubted that he will side with them when it was exposed that Alexander Dunning was behind all the killings and that his boss was also in on it. Alexander declares, “Wilkes told me you had promise. Okay, here’s how it goes. Moses just shot the VP. You kill him and the girl you’re head of the CIA” (Di Bonaventura & Schwentke, 2010). However, Cooper gives Frank the keys as he handcuffs him and the plan reverses. Proving that what the others had always thought would run smoothly was not as easy as they figured it to be. There were no self-fulfilling prophecies since the main plot of the story was how the underdogs were able to claim the day and clear the path towards their freedom. The film was able to capture the different elements that make for an interesting interaction among the unusual characters that make up the entire story. Considering that it was based on a comic book, there was still a great sense of reality in how the characters interact and how they react consistent to the storyline. There was ample of room to categorize them and to appreciate the different social-psychological perspectives that are manifest throughout. They offer a wider perspective on the principles and the delivery of the performances far-reaching from egomaniacal to paranoid keeps the film upbeat and interesting up to the very end. The different human elements evoke empathy and candidness. References Chang, J. (2008). The role of anonymity in deindividuated behavior: A comparison of Deindividuation Theory and the Social Identity Model of Deindividuation Effects (SIDE). The Pulse, 6 (1), 1-8. Di Bonaventura, L. (Producer), & Schwentke, R. (Director). (2010). RED [Motion picture]. United States: Summit Entertainment. Kowol, A. (n.d.). The theory of cognitive dissonance. Available from http://works.adamkowol.info/Festinger.pdf Smith, A.E., Jussim, L., Eccles, J. VanNoy, M., Madon, S. & Palumbo, P. (1998). Self-fulfilling prophecies, perceptual biases, and accuracy at the individual and group levels. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 34, 530-561. Read More