The action-comedy “RED” is fun. That’s really all it is; any success it has comes not from its hole-riddled plot, questionable plausibility and drawn-out resolution, but the performance of its all-star veteran cast.

“RED” refers not to the color but to the way in which the CIA lists its former operatives as “Retired, Extremely Dangerous.” The film follows the adventures of Frank Moses, played by the perpetually smirking Bruce Willis, a retired CIA operative who is forced out of retirement when a task force is sent to kill him. He then goes on a cross-country trip to round up his former CIA gang: he plucks the wise Morgan Freeman from a retirement home in New Orleans, picks up the psychotic, former munitions specialist John Malkovich in a Florida swamp and finds the retired “wet work” expert Helen Mirren idly arranging flowers. Included on Willis’ tour is a trip to Kansas City to pick up the delightful Mary-Louise Parker (“Weeds”), his initially reluctant love-interest.

The film drags on with a far-fetched and hackneyed plot involving some sort of conspiracy covering up the movie’s fictitious vice president’s involvement in a Guatemalan massacre and current CIA agent Cooper’s, played by Karl Urban, pursuit of Moses and his friends. Our only relief comes from Parker’s strong performance and the addition of Brian Cox to the geriatric gang as a vodka-swigging Cold War relic.

Overall, the quirky and talented cast of “RED” holds the whole film together and makes up, somewhat, for director Robert Schwentke’s terrible choice of screenplay. While most of the action seems quite implausible, the performances of Parker, Willis and the rest of the veteran gang are quite entertaining, making “RED” at least one of the funnier lightweight comedies in the box office.