Netflix’s Red Notice – A Stupid Fun Action Blockbuster (Early Review)

Red Notice has had an interesting history before being set to hit Netflix. What would have made for a perfect summer blockbuster, starring the likes of Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, and Gal Gadot, all bonafide movie stars. Already commanding big salaries, the film’s growing production budget may have led to its distribution rights being sold by Universal to Netflix. Nevertheless, the film is still getting a chance to be seen by millions of potential viewers worldwide and it won’t come as much of a surprise to anyone that it will based on star power alone. While the aforementioned three certainly deliver here, the film won’t be a big award contender by any means (not that it has to be) though is still a blast to watch assuming viewers don’t think about it too much. Just like any summer blockbuster, it’s big, stupid, and devoid of logic but it is full of thrills, spectacle, and a bunch of movie stars doing a bunch of movie star things even though we’ve all seen those things countless times before in countless other films. In the end, everybody knows this and the main selling point of this film is likely the chance to see Johnson, Reynolds, and Gadot play off of each other.

To that point, the premise of Red Notice essentially doesn’t matter as it gave FBI Agent John Hartley (Johnson), renowned art thief Nolan Booth (Reynolds), and another infamous criminal mastermind known solely as The Bishop (Gadot), the world as a playground for them to play in where rules, logic, and even consequences didn’t matter. Pursuing Booth across several continents, Hartley would find himself pulled into his world as the two men from opposite sides of the law were forced to form an unlikely alliance in order to pursue The Bishop for whom the two shared a past with and was seemingly ahead of them at every turn. Suffice it to say that their new alliance came with an adjustment period for Hartley and Booth who had much different perspectives of the world. Beyond mere trust issues, those relationship pitfalls aren’t new by any means but it still made for some fun banter while their evolution over the course of the film was compelling to watch.

While Hartley and Booth played a major part of Red Notice, the contribution of The Bishop should not be discounted as she made for a fun foil for the two who weren’t always on the best of terms themselves. Mostly serving as the big bad looming over the other two, she would pop in from time to time and always made an impact whenever she appeared. That being said, she is a thinner character than the other two as the film seemingly propped her up by her somewhat mysterious nature. However, viewers shouldn’t get too comfortable as the line became increasingly blurry over the course of the film as things weren’t always what they seemed as the story had its fair share of contrived moments in order to guide things along as it also threw in some twists for good measure. As far as these three characters are concerned, their story may not necessarily be over but whether or not they’ll get the chance to continue remains to be seen though is very likely to continue because obviously.

Red Notice brought plenty of spectacle to the table. Though exciting to watch, it is often just as if not more stupid than the rest of the film. Be it shooting, fighting, or various stunts, the film boasted some fun action set pieces in spite of the face of the countless moments of CGI and obvious stunt people. Regardless of everything else, the film would not have worked nearly as well if not for Johnson, Reynolds, and Gadot as Hartley, Booth, and The Bishop respectively. Though the three don’t bring anything new to the table in terms of their performances, especially Johnson and Reynolds, they were still fun to watch in spite of the cheesiness of it all. The chemistry was there but they all have more or less done the same thing before with Johnson and Reynolds once again taking part as polar opposites in an other buddy movie. Reynolds’ Booth is unsurprisingly the more wisecracking character, however, Johnson’s Hartley still gets his shots in as both characters eventually end up meeting somewhere in the middle. While this concept is not new by any means, their chemistry made it all work, Gadot as The Bishop showed a surprising amount of personality in spurts, keeping up with her male co-stars, in a role that still felt restrained in comparison to the other leads.

At the end of the day, Red Notice will be seen regardless but luckily is a fun, sit-down-and-turn-off-your-brain kind of watch that certainly does its job over its slightly too long running time. And watch for a special cameo.

still courtesy of Netflix

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.