Mark Reviews Movies: RED NOTICE

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Review by Mark Dujsik | November 4, 2021

The plot of Red Notice involves an elaborate, country-hopping scheme to find three priceless items of antiquity. The story of the movie, though, is about a trio of actors trying to charm their way through and above that routine plot, some generic characters, and plenty of clunky dialogue. Some movie critics and cultural analysts have suggested that the era of the movie star has passed, but the aims and approach of this movie, as well as others like it, stand counter that perspective. Here, the stars serve as the primary reason for the movie's existence, and they are the only elements that more or less work.

Everything else within writer/director Rawson Marshall Thurber's movie is blandly mundane or has been done so many times that it goes beyond cliché. At least one character, the jokey thief played by go-to jokester Ryan Reynolds, recognizes how familiar all of this is, whether he's whistling a famous movie adventurer's theme song or suggesting he and his partner look for the crate labelled "MacGuffin" to find some lost treasure. A smarter, funnier movie might have made something of this character's self-awareness and knowledge of action/adventure-comedy, but this is simply the kind of formulaic affair the character in the hypothetically cleverer movie would be mocking.

Reynolds plays Nolan Booth, an infamous and internationally wanted art thief who is set on stealing three eggs gifted to Cleopatra by Mark Antony, before their romance arrived at its tragic end. Out to stop him is FBI profiler named John Hartley, who's played by the current go-to action/action-comedy star Dwayne Johnson. The idea of teaming up Johnson, the effortlessly charismatic hulk who's so good at playing the deadpan straight man, and Reynolds, who seems to exude sarcasm from his pores, is a fine enough one. That's about where Thurber's thinking on the matter appears to end.

The screenplay almost immediately and rather awkwardly establishes the dynamic between these two characters. Booth is caught mid-heist by Hartley's quick thinking. The two engage in a chase through the halls of a museum in Rome, before they exchange some banter, and again, that's about where the thinking behind this relationship ends. To be sure, after Booth escapes and Hartley catches up with him at the thief's hideaway home, the FBI guy offers a psychological profile of Booth that cuts to the core—trying to live up to a father who never approved of him. The content of the big speech is nothing special, and the way Thurber stops the movie dead in its tracks for an expository monologue is even more awkward.

In terms of plot, what else needs to be said? Hartley and Booth have to team up to search for the three eggs, after the former is framed by the enigmatic thief known only as the Bishop. She's played by Gal Gadot, who shows—as she has in some other, less constrained roles—that she's capable of some charming playfulness outside of a superhero costume. Indeed, Gadot might offer the most surprising turn of the three stars here, as she's allowed to play her mastermind art crook with some moments of silliness.

Anyway, Hartley, who wants to clear his name, and Booth end up in a Russian prison and rather conveniently escape—but not before a lot of running, jumping, and avoiding bullets and missiles. After that, the two try to stay ahead of an intrepid Interpol agent (played by Ritu Arya) and the Bishop in the pursuit of the eggs, infiltrating a masquerade party held by the villainous Sotto Voce (Chris Diamantopoulos), who likes to strangle people (The movie's relationship with and attitude toward violence is inconsistent, from the darkness of this character to the casual and consequence-free use of guns in assorted scenes).

There is, obviously, a scene of the professional thief and the thief-by-necessity going through their plan, and of course, nothing goes according to said plan, even though the pair execute the particulars with pinpoint precision and perfect timing. When they're not insulting or otherwise joking around with each other (Reynolds is almost certainly improvising his way through his digs and quips), our protagonists spell out every step of their plan (which eventually—and in a rather blasé way—involves artifacts stolen by the Nazis), every obvious twist and expected turn of the plot, and every moment when, quite randomly, their relationship goes from annoyance to camaraderie.

Every element here—from the plot details to the jokes—seems assembled piecemeal, because only one element really matters. The movie stars isn't dead. It just seems that way from the exhaustion of propping up disposable material like Red Notice.

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