Red Notice

The ones who know me personally, they know how much i love napkins. I collect napkins of all kinds, especially with flowers, coffee beans, oak trees, and with ocean pictures as well. I don´t know how many of boxes of napkins i have, let´s just say i probably have enough to please 7 Trump rallys in Alabama, and that is quite impressive. So why would you want to save napkins? I figured out that if there is one thing doomsday people have not thought about, it is that they might run out of napkins after eating their cans of food. They might have lots of cans, but they will have to come to me to find napkins. So if you ever see a big yard sign with the title " The Napkin King ", that would be me. It will most likely be seen next to one of Mike Lindell´s My Pillow commercial signs, since i thought we would make a great team. Speaking of napkins, i am not sure, but i have a feeling that Dwayne Johnson might be one of those guys who knows what quality napkins looks like. You can tell by the look of his eyes, that as soon as he enter a store, he knows exactly what kind of napkins will be a perfect match for dinner. You may think this is easy, but you have to be very aware of what works or not. I have no idea if he also have boxes at home, but considering the amazing career he have, it is quite possible he could have. Speaking of Dwayne, he have so many wonderful films in his career, and we could probably discuss several of them. But i decided to bring up one title that you don´t hear much about these days, and that is the 2013 action thriller known as Snitch. Directed by Ric Roman Waugh ( who also directed Angel Has Fallen with Gerard Butler ), this film tells the story of college student Jason Collins ( Rafi Gavron ), who is arrested after the Drug Enforcement Agency find drugs in his home, wich he got from his friend Craig Johnson ( Jason Alex McCune ). At a barbecue, John Matthews ( Dwayne Johnson ), John´s estranged father and owner of a construction company, gets a phone call from his ex-wife Sylvie where he finds out Jason is arrested. They meet up with an investigator in Jason´s case who inform them that he could be facing 10 years in prison. John manage to figure out a way to try and help Jason get a reduced sentence, by being an informer on a drug dealer. Snitch may not be one of the best films in Dwayne´s amazing career, but i do think this is a good film, trying a different approach, especially since this film have a lot of truck scenes. Director Ric Roman Waugh balance the serious tone of the drug issues, with effective action scenes. Definetely worth checking out on Netflix, Amazon Prime or on VOD. Speaking of Dwayne Johnson, he keeps himself quite busy. with several films coming out such as Black Adam and Red One. This autumn he clearly made a big impact on Netflix, in the action comedy Red Notice. It turns out that this film is the most watched original film on Netflix ever, wich is of course impressive. With a great cast included, is Red Notice the film to watch this Christmas, or should this project have been cancelled before production started?

Two whousand years ago, Marcus Antonios gifts Cleopatra three bejewelled eggs as a wedding gift symbolizing his devotion. Three eggs are lost to time until two are found by a farmer in 1907, but the last one remains lost. In 2021, Special Agent John Hartley ( Dwayne Johnson ), a criminal profiler for FBI, is assigned to assist Interpol agent Urvashi Das ( Ritu Arya ) in investigating a potential theft of one of the eggs kept on display at Museo Nazionale di Castel Sant´Angelo in Rome. John Hartley notice that the egg on display is fake, and prove it to the visitors. The real egg is stolen by internation art thief Nolan Booth ( Ryan Reynolds ), who manage to escape while being chased by John. Nolan believe he have managed to get away, but John manage to track him down to his home, where Nolan still have the egg. He is arrested and the egg is taken to custody. The egg is stolen again from the transport veichle, by the well known Sarah "The Bishop" Black ( Gal Gadot ). John is arrested in suspicion of being connected with the egg theft, and is taken to prison to Russia, where Nolan is also locked up. The Bishop shows up in prison, suggesting that they help her find the third egg. They accept the offer and escape the prison. But they soon realise, this mission have a lot more twists and turns than they expected.

There is no question that Red Notice reminds me of a lot of coup films, that have used similar ideas when it comes to stealing art or historical objects. One film that comes to my mind, is the 1999 action thriller Entrapment from director Jon Amiel. In this film you see actress Catherine Zeta-Jones, playing the investigator Virgina "Gin" Baker, where she is sent undercover to investigate professional thief Robert "Mac" MacDougal ( played by legendary actor Sean Connery ). This film is one of those titles you remember, for actually being pretty descent, where the basic plot is stealing a priceless Chinese mask. In Red Notice, we have another historical object that is being stolen. When Entrapment managed to be charming, and worked well as a caper film, you could say that Red Notice is a much more adrenaline inspired action comedy, that have an Entrapment vibe in the plot. There is especially one issue i have with this film, but let´s bring out what i did enjoy with Red Notice. First of all the chemistry between actors Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds works well. You can tell that they had fun making this film, and they both know how to entertain the audience, in their own unique way. This film does have a good rythm, where there are some fun, and intensive action scenes included. In some ways Red Notice feels like a 90´s action comedy, and this could have gone really bad, but they actually managed to make the tone of this film work. Actress Gal Gadot also know how to charm the audience, and even if she may not give one of her strongest acting performance in this film, she still have a magical screen presence. Now to my problem with this film. There is one specific actor in this film that deliver an acting performance, that reminded me of the 1999 film Simon Sez ( a film that should be seen, for being so terrible ). Basketball player Dennis Rodman tried to be an action star, without any luck. If you have seen that film, you might remember some of the acting performances in that film. And you will find the same level of bad acting as Simon Sez, with actor Chris Diamantopoulos. For a bad guy in the film Red Notice, he is really awful as a villain. It is almost as if he did an audition for a Simon Sez sequel ( maybe that was his plan? ).  Other than that, i can´t really say anything else that affect my opinion on this film. The biggest difference between Simon Sez and Red Notice, is of course that this is actually a fun film, while Simon Sez is just terrible, in every possible way. I had a good time with Red Notice, for what this is, a throwback to the 90´s. If you can accept that we have seen this type of film many times before, just go into this film with an open mind, and you might actually enjoy it. Red Notice may not bring anything new, or original, but is definetely made to entertain the audiences who appreciate the films of the 90´s, and that´s good enough for me.

Rating: DDD