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Netflix's most expensive movie Red Notice
We already talked about it a couple of years ago in the Skyscraper review: Marshall Thurber's career is something really interesting. Begun in the all-around comedy with the irreverent and beloved Dodgeball - Balls to the leap in 2004, it continued gradually welcoming more and more contaminations from the action genre, passing from Come ti spaccio la Famiglia to A spy and a half.
American comedies of the first level because they are interpreted by much-loved genre actors, from Ben Stiller to Jason Sudeikis, passing through Jennifer Aniston to The Rock, capable of containing an action dimension that is interesting in its own way, more than anything else centered. The evolution lasted until Skyscraper, which instead overturned Thurber's cinematic and conceptual structure by focusing much more on action than on comedy, actually packaging a title almost entirely derived from Die Hard with Bruce Willis but also full of authorial references.
An essential step for the director, who in addition to proving himself capable in the genre has understood how it could basically become the primary infrastructure of his inventions, because it is solid in its foundations and easy to mix with many other film types. This is how Red Notice was born in practice, nothing more than a heist movie full of action and fun able to perfectly combine thriller and comedy components with the minimum technical or stylistic effort.
In fact, this makes the title an intelligent product aimed at the widest possible audience, designed to be less dizzying and cinematic than Michael Bay's 6 Underground but equally expensive and impactful. Indeed, even more expensive, given that with its 200 million dollars the new original Netflix is the most expensive film ever produced by the streaming platform.
Honestly, it is not clear where all that budget has gone: some environments seem fake or cheap, the special effects are very good but not among the best, and in addition to the triptych of protagonists the secondary actors are small - even unimportant. The costs will certainly have risen due to the postponement due to the Coronavirus pandemic, but even looking at the duration and general quality of post-production, the actual investment seems somewhat absurd and justifiable only by an impressive fee requested by The Rock, Reynolds, and Gadot.
Having overcome the perplexities in the production field, however, Red Notice knows what it is all about. Nothing new on the horizon, certainly nothing so impressive or shocking, but the action-thriller by Marshall Thurber is one of those titles to be seen relaxed and with a smile, because it asks for nothing else.
Devoid of any form of authorial claim - even in the field of action -, the film is entertainment in the wild, left free to be insane or exaggerated, but also humorous and reasoned. There are escapes, hand-to-hand fights, chases, escapes, twists: everything you need to make the two hours run smoothly and happily; certainly not those of the dramaturgical ambition already experienced in the worst way in the last chapter of Dominic Toretto's saga.
Red Notice is the most appropriate measure for Netflix's average qualitative model: there is nothing that really remains impressed but at the same time nothing is out of place and, indeed, Marshall Thurber's explosive comedy streak is here more active than ever. perhaps even from the days of Dodgeball.
The relationship and the dialogues between The Rock and Reynolds are hilarious, able to take into account their respective acting skills, their times, the different applications on stage, and this is also thanks to the alchemy between the two and the very enjoyable performances. To underline also the best competence of Gal Gadot in a role that does not require a depth of any kind but with strong characterization.
In short, looking at Indiana Jones and all that action-adventure panorama of which the cinema and videogame market is now saturated, as well as taking up some structural elements from the aforementioned Fast & Furious, Red Notice succeeds in the task of thrilling and entertaining without particular ambitions. It is muscular and instant cinema, which fills the stomach without giving who knows what emotion, only appetizing and to be swallowed as it comes, irresistible and delicious in its total simplicity.
Red Notice is the perfect and essential synthesis of Rawson Marshall Thurber's cinema, as well as an adequate measure of Netflix's average quality production. A muscular and wandering action-thriller that lives its peak not so much in gender exaggeration as in the heist movie aspect and in the comedy, in the relationships and dialogues between two hilarious The Rock and Ryan Reynolds, but also in the more "bad" dimension "given to Gal Gadot, splendid and combative in the role of the Bishop. A title that lacks nothing