Red Notice (2021)
Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber
An Interpol-issued Red Notice is a global alert to hunt and capture the world's most wanted. But when a daring heist brings together the FBI's top profiler and two rival criminals, there's no telling what will happen.
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28 films that influenced Red Notice
What critics say influenced Red Notice
There are less overt but no less redolent inspirations throughout Red Notice — to the Bourne, Bond and Mission: Impossible movies, the National Treasure franchise and the Sean Connery-Catherine Zeta-Jones romp Entrapment .
Borrowing several nods to “Indiana Jones” and “National Treasure,” “Red Notice'' tries to be the Netflix answer to the “Bourne,” James Bond, and “Mission: Impossible” series’ with lackluster results.
Story-wise it is a patchwork pastiche of To Catch A Thief , Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Bond, with a bit of National Treasure and Raiders Of The Lost Ark thrown in for good measure (Ryan Reynolds even whistles the Raiders theme at one point).
Films like “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “National Treasure” were clear inspirations on “Red Notice” but to say this movies lacks the identity of great action/adventure movies would be an understatement.
As in, there is a lot of Jackie Chan’s Armour of God and Nicolas Cage’s National Treasure in the fun, loud, but oddly immemorable Red Notice, the second in Netflix’s run of Reynolds' fight-and-flight flicks after the equally forgettable 6 Underground.
There's the mismatched cop-thief pairing from "48 Hrs.," the party sequence from "True Lies," the clue-solving from "National Treasure," and so on.
Other references include The Third Man , Gladiator , Reservoir Dogs , Raiders of the Lost Ark , and so forth.
Story-wise it is a patchwork pastiche of To Catch A Thief , Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Bond, with a bit of National Treasure and Raiders Of The Lost Ark thrown in for good measure (Ryan Reynolds even whistles the Raiders theme at one point).
You're reminded of other movies – Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ocean's Eleven and more – and the problem is that it reminds you how superior they were.
Any movie that jokes about the sought-after loot being a MacGuffin, a reference to Alfred Hitchcock's name for whatever priceless artifact set his plots in motion, or has Reynolds whistle the "Raiders of the Lost Ark" march clearly isn't taking itself too seriously.
Some of those, like the Indiana Jones movies, are acknowledged with a cheeky wink — for instance when Reynolds’ Nolan Booth, played with his trademark obnoxious smartass attitude, descends into a vault crammed with priceless antiquities looted by Nazis and whistles a couple of bars of John Williams’ Raiders of the Lost Ark theme.
A hybrid of dozens of other comedic heist flicks as well as “Romancing the Stone,” “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Red Notice” is a shameless, unabashed, and almost proud derivative effort (one scene features a character whistling the main theme from “Raiders”).
Also channeled are retro favorites like James Cameron’s “True Lies” (including a sexy tango in which a big lug in a tuxedo — Johnson, not Schwarzenegger, in this case — makes himself irresponsibly conspicuous while undercover).
Their bodies wrapped around each other, in the seductive motions of the tango, is meant to evoke the sensual power dynamics at the heart of True Lies .
A buddy action-comedy that blends elements of James Bond, Mission: Impossible , Entrapment , Indiana Jones , True Lies , The Fugitive, and many, many more, Red Notice is a welcome throwback to the days before omnipresent franchises and IP, when movie stars and original (or, in this case, “original”) blockbusters ruled the industry.
There's the mismatched cop-thief pairing from "48 Hrs.," the party sequence from "True Lies," the clue-solving from "National Treasure," and so on.
Borrowing several nods to “Indiana Jones” and “National Treasure,” “Red Notice'' tries to be the Netflix answer to the “Bourne,” James Bond, and “Mission: Impossible” series’ with lackluster results.
Pretty much every single aspect of Thurber's script is derivative, and while riffing on other movies is hardly a new concept and can be forgivable if it yields positive results, Red Notice is nothing more than a blatant hodgepodge of everything from Indiana Jones , to Mission: Impossible , to The Thomas Crown Affair - the list goes on.
A buddy action-comedy that blends elements of James Bond, Mission: Impossible , Entrapment , Indiana Jones , True Lies , The Fugitive, and many, many more, Red Notice is a welcome throwback to the days before omnipresent franchises and IP, when movie stars and original (or, in this case, “original”) blockbusters ruled the industry.
But anyway, the film is a globe-trotting affair on par with Mission: Impossible , James Bond , and Indiana Jones .
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Reynolds can form chemistry with anyone, and with Johnson, they give off Romancing the Stone vibes.
A hybrid of dozens of other comedic heist flicks as well as “Romancing the Stone,” “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Red Notice” is a shameless, unabashed, and almost proud derivative effort (one scene features a character whistling the main theme from “Raiders”).
There are less overt but no less redolent inspirations throughout Red Notice — to the Bourne, Bond and Mission: Impossible movies, the National Treasure franchise and the Sean Connery-Catherine Zeta-Jones romp Entrapment .
The unlikely pair wind up tethered by a common cause, but Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier in The Defiant Ones they are not.
As in, there is a lot of Jackie Chan’s Armour of God and Nicolas Cage’s National Treasure in the fun, loud, but oddly immemorable Red Notice, the second in Netflix’s run of Reynolds' fight-and-flight flicks after the equally forgettable 6 Underground.
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You're reminded of other movies – Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ocean's Eleven and more – and the problem is that it reminds you how superior they were.
About midway through Red Notice , Ryan Reynolds' international art thief Nolan Booth starts distractedly humming a snatch of the Indiana Jones theme — that triumphant duh duh-duh DUH melody still instantly familiar even in a few brief, reedy notes.