Not even The Rock could save Netflix’s ‘Red Notice’
“Red Notice” is Netflix’s highly expensive heist movie starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot. The action-comedy banks on the typecasting of its A-list actors, Johnson’s muscles, Reynold’s hilarious banter and Gadot’s oozing sex appeal, but it fails to be fresh at all.
The film follows FBI Special Agent John Hartley, played by Johnson, as he tries to capture the world’s No. 1 art thief Nolan Booth, played by Reynolds, with the help from another mysterious art thief The Bishop, played by Gadot.
Booth and the Bishop are after three golden eggs given to Cleopatra on her wedding day to Mark Antony. The Bishop tricks Inspector Urvashi Das, played by “The Umbrella Academy” actress Ritu Arya, into thinking Hartley is a fake FBI agent in cahoots with Booth to steal the eggs.
Hartley and Booth are sent to the same prison, where they plan to escape to continue the search. Hartley learns some rich guy wants to give them to his daughter named Cleopatra on her wedding night. To catch The Bishop and clear his name, Hartley teams up with Booth to get to the eggs before The Bishop does.
It felt like a bad knockoff of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” meets “Ocean’s Eleven.” The film relies too much on the star power and not on the actual story or characters. Overusing the qualities that make Johnson, Reynolds and Gadot popular among fans caused a stale performance that felt predictable and trite.
Filled with all types of popular heist film cliches like over-the-top plans, mishaps and bromances, it failed to make anything worthwhile. It was a generic plot filled with generically greedy characters.
“Red Notice” is Netflix’s lets-get-rich-quick movie. Something they make with big stars that no one is really interested in, not even the people involved in making the film, but everyone knows it’s going to be successful no matter the quality.
The unoriginal heist film “Red Notice” is streaming on Netflix and playing in select theaters — although you probably shouldn’t waste your money on it.
