Red Notice Parent Guide

Nolan Booth (Ryan Reynolds) is the second-best art thief in the world, and for good reason. He is fast, cunning, and crafty…but not crafty enough to evade FBI agent John Hartley (Dwayne Johnson), who has been working with Interpol inspector Urvashi Das (Ritu Arya) to bring him to justice. Booth’s latest job saw him attempting to steal one of three ancient golden eggs given to Cleopatra by Marcus Antonius. And even though Hartley manages to catch up with Booth, he finds himself double crossed by the mysterious Bishop (Gal Gadot), the best art thief in the world, who gave him the tip about Booth’s designs on the egg. Not only does this bring his investigations to a halt, but Hartley finds himself thrown into a Russian prison with Booth on charges of theft and fraud, where he learns of an ongoing plot to steal all three eggs. The only way to prove his innocence is to break out of prison…but to do that, he’s going to need Booth’s help. And while they plot their escape, Bishop is getting closer and closer to collecting the other eggs.

If at any point in this film a cogent though crosses your mind, then something is wrong. This is designed to be completely brainless entertainment, with plenty of ludicrous capers, sarcastic banter, and a fair few explosions to prevent any kind of actual analysis. It also tries to prevent you from thinking by bouncing between genres every twenty minutes or so. Sometimes, you’ll think you’re watching a rip-off of Get Smart or Mission Impossible, but before you get used to that, it switches to Ocean’s 11. By the end, it’s Indiana Jones.

The tonal roller coaster can be fun, but it also means the plot has to support a lot of weight: Genre roulette needs plot justification, and it never quite gets there. The story always feels like a series of flimsy excuses for some cool action, so if you’re planning to pay attention to the story…don’t. It’s frustrating – but not enough to stop fans of mindless, slapstick action from having a good time.

This is another one of those films where everyone might as well have left their guns at home. Sure, there are a handful of shootouts, one of which involves a minigun mounted to a helicopter, but no one actually gets shot. People get shot at for sure, but not one person gets hit. Actual violence is limited to fistfights, and one scene of torture involving a very unpleasant placement of jumper cables and a car battery. There’s also a good deal of scatological profanity, which makes this movie unsuitable for pre-teen viewing. It is, however, perfectly suited for teenagers, in that it is almost deliberately stupid. If my own viewing preferences as a teen are anything to go by, that ought to work out just fine. And even if you’ve left that particularly brain-dead chapter of your life in the past, you can still have fun with Red Notice: Just try not to think about it. Or anything, for that matter.