Red Notice: A Stylish Throwback Globe-Trotting Affair

Red Notice, the stylish globe-trotting affair starring Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, and Gal Gadot, is a throwback that lives up to the hype.

The less you know going into Red Notice, the better. Discussing any bit of the plot would take us into spoiler territory and nobody wants that. What I can definitely tell you is that this film is the best of the three collaborations between filmmaker Rawson Marshall Thurber and actor Dwayne Johnson. Honestly, Red Notice is the filmmaker’s best outing since DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story.

This is the main thing you need to know: FBI top profiler John Hartley (Dwayne Johnson) is working with INTERPOL to capture a pair of rival criminals, Nolan Booth (Ryan Reynolds) and “The Bishop” (Gal Gadot). Other than this, the only other thing you need to know going into the film is what a Red Notice is. It is the highest level arrest warrant to be issued by INTERPOL. If you wish to know more, read on. Otherwise, please stop here and check back again after you see the film. Trust me. Red Notice benefits from viewers knowing as little as possible and I’m going to keep stressing it!

What we know is that Hartley and INTERPOL are chasing after Nolan Booth because they suspect he will steal one of two known Cleopatra’s Eggs. Only the locations of two Eggs are known. However, the museum is the only one accessible to the public. The third egg remains missing and nobody appears to know where it is. But anyway, the film is a globe-trotting affair on par with Mission: Impossible, James Bond, and Indiana Jones. That’s the vibe I got while watching the film and for all I know, it could very well be the start of a franchise. Personally, I hope so because these actors have the chemistry to pull it off. But again, this is all I’m going to say with regards to any of the plot. The less you know, the better. I cannot stress this enough.

There is is lot of solid comedy material in this film. While I will keep a lot of this humor to a minimum, there is one particular joke that I must shout out. I absolutely love the Jurassic Park jokes. I’m not doing what I do without Jurassic Park so these lines brought a smile to my face while I was also laughing at the same time.

When you have a cast of this caliber, the release is going to come with a lot of hype. Let me tell you that the audience has nothing to worry about. There’s rarely a minute of screen time when Johnson, Reynolds, or Gadot are not on screen. It’s doubtful that we see another film of this caliber for the rest of the year. How often do you have a throwback affair with three of the biggest movie stars in the world? I had the same amount of fun watching this film that I did when I watched Jungle Cruise. Different filmmakers and scripts but both are throwbacks in their own way.

Red Notice probably won’t win an Oscar or earn any nominations but this isn’t going to stop me from enjoying the stylish affair! The main thing that a film like this needs to do is just leave its audiences feeling entertained! As long as we’re getting entertainment, the film is doing its job.

I could call this film an action comedy but if I am being honest, the film is so much more. Rawson Marshall Thurber manages to give us a comedy, action-adventure, thrills, heists, and drama–all in the span of just under 2 hours. The set pieces and chases in the film can easily rival what we see in Mission: Impossible or James Bond. Sure, I mentioned those films already but it just proves to drive my point home.

The best way to enjoy the globe-trotting affair that is Red Notice is to go in knowing as little as possible. You’ll thank me later.

DIRECTOR/SCREENWRITER: Rawson Marshall Thurber
CAST: Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot, Ritu Arya, Chris Diamantopoulos