Red Notice Movie Review

Red Notice (2021)

Watch Red Notice on Netflix
Written by: Rawson Marshall Thurber
Directed by: Rawson Marshall Thurber
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot, Ritu Arya, Chris Diamantopoulos
Rated: PG-13
Watch the trailer

Plot
A daring heist brings together the FBI’s top profiler and two rival criminals.

Verdict
Pleasantly surprising, this puts three very popular stars that cater to very different markets into a globe hopping story of thievery, intrigue, and twists. While the Rock and Ryan Reynolds play their typical good guy and snarky characters, that doesn't stop this from being a fun movie. It's entertaining, and that's all it set out to be.
It depends.

Review
There's big action from the start with an art heist that turns into a parkour chase. Hartley (Dwayne Johnson) attempts to apprehend famed thief Booth (Ryan Reynolds). Both actors playing to type with Johnson's hero role and Reynolds's typical snarky one liners.

Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds

This has some fun twists that keeps the plot lively and take us across the world. The movie continually maximizes the tension whether it be Hartley and Booth having to escape from an impossibly located prison or impossible robberies. This also subverts quite a few action movie tropes while including plenty of pop-culture references.

Gal Gadot and Dwayne Johnson

There's a lot of flash to this as expected. This gets famous actors to play their typical types and puts them in various set pieces across the world. It works as this is actually pretty fun with the characters playing off of each other. This is an action packed, popcorn movie. While it feels like something generated from a survey, it's completely entertaining. It's definitely better than expected and the twists keep it going.

I just hope movies don't go too far in copying this formula. This seems to have checked the boxes on aspects that perform well in test audiences. The actors seem handpicked to get the widest possible audience. With how well this has done on Netflix, a sequel seems inevitable. It doesn't have to be good, it just has to be entertaining enough to keep people watching.