In Red Notice, FBI profiler John Hartley (Dwayne Johnson) is on the hunt for renowned art thief Nolan Booth (Ryan Reynolds). When a mysterious informant, “The Bishop” (Gal Gadot), frames the pair for a massive robbery, the duo is forced to go on the run, trying to clear their names and stop the largest heist in modern history.
Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, Red Notice is heavy on action-packed set pieces and light on sensible plot. There’s a charming repartee between Johnson and Reynolds, though at this point Reynolds’s rehashing of the wisecracking anti-hero is running more than a bit thin. There are a lot of globe-trotting setups in line with most contemporary action flicks, but the settings offer little more than backdrops to ridiculous scenarios where our heroes survive situations that would put any mere mortal in the morgue. Suspension of disbelief is the phrase of the day here, with a shout-out going to a rocket-launcher-fueled prison escape, and a special mention going to a bull goring. Red Notice is a lot of sound and light with almost no substance; like the plot of the film itself, none of the many bullets that whizz around ever seem to find their targets. PG-13, 116 min.