The Good Killer

SAS: RED NOTICE I Terrorists take the Channel Tunnel in this Andy McNab adaptation.

The simple way to describe SAS: Red Notice is ‘Die Hard on a train’. But this overlooks the film’s USP – that charming, chiselled hero Tom Buckingham (Sam Heughan) is a psychopath. “That’s the thing that sustained us, and made the project interesting,” says writer/ producer Laurence Malkin. “He doesn’t actually have empathy or love. But he can create it. That’s something we explore in the film.”

On set at London’s St. Pancras Station in December 2019, Teasers has turned up on a rare Red Notice day where emotions, rather than bullets, are flying high. Today, Buckingham and his girlfriend Sophie (Hannah John-Kamen) are about to hop on the ‘Eurostream’ to Paris, where he plans to propose. But wanted mercenary Grace Lewis (Ruby Rose) is also sneaking aboard in Mission: Impossible-worthy prosthetics, intent on hijacking the train.

Adapted from the first novel in the Tom Buckingham trilogy, the film bears all the hallmarks of McNab’s military fiction – including authentic depiction of firearms use and SAS tactics. But it’s Buckingham’s ‘good functioning psychopath’ that separates Red Notice from the norm. He may fight for the good guys, but he doesn’t feel anything when he kills – a useful edge in combat.

McNab knows a thing or two about good functioning psychopaths – he claims to be one himself, and literally wrote the book on the subject. And he gave Heughan a crash course in weapons handling and psychology. “The biggest cock-up I made was that the more info you gave [Sam], the more he’d come back wanting more. So we were there for fucking hours,” McNab laughs.

Also starring Andy Serkis, Tom Hopper, Tom Wilkinson and Noel Clarke, a scale section of the Channel Tunnel was built (and blown up) in Hungary for the film. And everyone involved is ready for more. “We’re all committed to it,” Malkin says. “There’s plenty more to mine.” JF

ETA | 12 MARCH / SAS: RED NOTICE RELEASES ON SKY CINEMA AND IN CINEMAS NEXT MONTH.