‘RED NOTICE’ (2021) NETFLIX REVIEW: THE FUN KIND OF CAPER MOVIE WE NEED

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Most of the action movies Netflix releases tend to be slapped with an R-rating. Needless to say when reading about Red Notice (2021) long ago, I assumed the same. When the star-studded thriller received the lesser rating, I settled in for, hopefully, a fun time.

RED NOTICE (2021) NETFLIX REVIEW

Perfecting his trade as the world’s best thief is something Nolan Booth (Ryan Reynolds) is proud of. His current object of affection is one of three eggs rumored to be a gift to Cleopatra. The first two eggs have a location easily discoverable, but the third egg that’s the mystery. When Hartley doesn’t know is that an American FBI profiler, John Hartley (Dwayne Johnson) is now on his case working alongside Interpol. When Hartley captures Booth, he makes plans to return to the states only before he can, Interpol arrests him. It would seem someone is setting him up.

The person behind this is someone called The Bishop, the woman who also happens to be eliminating her competition. Now The Bishop (Gal Gadot) would seem to have the upper hand in completing the trifecta of Cleopatra’s eggs for the wealthy buyer… only does she anticipate Booth and Hartley escaping custody?

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As is true of anything new, I didn’t really know what to expect from this. Apart from reading the brief synopsis and liking the actors from prior roles, I didn’t watch interviews or a trailer. Lately that’s how I’ve been watching movies and it’s mostly, fun. This film is precisely this and more. It’s a good time to say the least even with some bad green screen special effects. I cannot count the number of ways it’s fun, but most importantly, I think it’s the kind of movie we need but rarely see anymore.

There’s humor (though not to the taste of everyone) and action, all in a kind of sophisticated manner that reminds of the 90s Thomas Crown Affair film. Part of this is because of the one upper class party scene and pretty costumes, but also just the plot, too. It’s got that sense of style that’s hard to ignore. There’s a kind of class that any good caper movie inherently has and then there’s the many locations we jump to.

This has a solid and easily recognized cast. I’ve liked Reynolds in anything I’ve seen him in and of course, Gadot is DC Comics Wonder Woman. Everyone works well together and has a pretty solid chemistry that’s fun to see shift and evolve over the course of the nearly two hour film. It drags a little in places, but mostly it keeps a solid pace and ends up being one of those movies we need. I’m here for a surge of a good caper film.

You can find Red Notice (2021) streaming on Netflix.

Photos: Netflix

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Content: there’s crude humor and references to male anatomy. There’s some action scenes and mayhem (falling scaffolding, an attempt to escape launched weapons). There is also hand to hand combat and the implication a woman electrocutes a man’s privates. There’s nothing graphic though plenty of gunfire.