Review of Red Notice (2021) by Castlegrey — 28 Nov 2021

For a film that relies on witty dialogue and a zippy, slick plot, Red Notice is ultimately a painfully juvenile and outright dumb experience - even the very title is completely misplaced (why on earth would an art thief ever be on the kind of list reserved for the kinds of criminals responsible for actual crimes against humanity), and emblematic of the "style" over substance that underpins the whole affair - and in the first 20 minutes alone, I counted 9(!) product placements so clumsily and overtly inserted that it actually took me fully out of the scene in question each time.

Ryan Reynolds plays a stock Ryan Reynolds type and churns out a literally non-stop deluge of flat jokes that writer-director Rawston Marshall Thurber clearly thought was hilariously clever, Dwayne Johnson seems to be going through the motions in a similarly stock role as himself, and Gal Gadot pops up throughout to deliver repeated "I somehow anticipated your every move (by reading ahead in the script)!" pantomime villain turns.

The plot is pure nonsense, the whole thing is clearly written by someone with absolutely no understanding of anything to do with Interpol, law enforcement or basic common sense, and there's no sparkle of wit or particularly entertaining setpieces to elevate Red Notice to comparisons with the Mission: Impossible type capers that it so painfully tries to emulate.

You've seen this film at least a dozen times before if you've watched literally any of the many C-list projects that Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds pay their bills with between real projects - you really don't need to waste your time with this one when there are so many better versions of this movie that already exist, and that weren't written by a five year old imagining how professional adults act.

I honestly feel embarrassed for anyone who gave this dreck a positive score, because you deserve better and you don't even seem to have the capacity to understand why Expand.