Red Notice a self-parody gone terribly wrong
HBO’S Succession a corporate soap on steroids
Netflix’s latest star-studded, actioncomedy Red Notice tries to be many things: An action-packed thrill ride, a buddy cop comedy, a tomb-raiding adventure and a parody of these genres all wrapped up in one two hour package.
The problem is that Red Notice fails at every one of these attempts and we’re left with a boring mess that leaves you happy to see the credits roll.
But, thanks to its marquee stars: Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot, this movie will likely do streaming gangbusters for Netflix and we’ll end up with a regretful sequel anyways.
Red Notice is about an FBI agent Johnson Hartley (Dwayne Johnson) and his attempt to track down and arrest notorious art thief Nolan Booth (Reynolds) before he makes off with an ancient treasure, one of Cleopatra’s three golden eggs, gifted by Anthony in antiquity. Things go off the rails and the pair eventually end up trying to stop another notorious art thief, The Bishop (Gadot), who has compromised Hartley’s identity and is after the same prize.
There are some fun and even unexpected twists and turns as everyone is attempting to double-cross everyone else, though, at least for me, I felt nothing for the characters themselves. There’s some ham-fisted exposition that attempts to give some depth to the cops and robbers, but it all falls flat.
Reynolds, to his credit, is funny throughout, but it’s often through self-aware humour that’s seemingly making fun of the film itself. Clocking how ridiculous the situation is or calling out tropes of the genre as they happen.
Some scenes had me laughing out loud, not because they were intentionally funny, but because the situation was so ridiculous, so fourth-wall breakingly bad, I could do nothing else but laugh.
At times, the movie is filmed in stunning locations and then in the next scene, it looks like a low-budget sound stage or a poorly made computer-generated castle prison on top of a Russian peak. The back and forth in production quality is dizzying as a viewer.
Red Notice feels like a Hollywood studio put a bunch of successful action-adventure film franchises, Indiana Jones, 007, Lethal Weapon, etc. put them in a blender and hoped whatever poured out was good. This was not.
If you want to watch attractive people bumble around on screen and choke through a poorly written script, but not much else, give it a watch. Otherwise, skip.
SYNERGISTIC MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS
The hype around Succession’s third season finally convinced me to take a dive into the Emmy-award-winning drama, which is available on Crave+. I’m so glad I did.
I’m only one season in, but I’m already hooked.
Deliciously slick and addictive, Succession feels like both a high-brow HBO feast and a guilty pleasure at the same time. It’s just what I needed.
The series centres around the Roy family, who own a powerful media and telecommunications company that’s dealing with major upheavals in their business model.
The patriarch of the family, Logan Roy (Brian Cox) seems to be ready to retire and hand over the reins to the next generation. But, things don’t unfold so well for the Roy clan, especially Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong), heir apparent to the corporate throne.
The other Roy siblings, Shiv (Sarah Snook), Roman (Kieran Culkin) and Connor (Alan Ruck) vie for position as the orbit of control slips out of everyone’s fingers.
What I love about Succession is that it’s not afraid to show how awful its main characters are. These are the worst sort of the super-rich, completely self-absorbed and neurotic with few redeeming qualities. And despite that, I’m still so interested in what hair-brained scheme they’re going to fumble next.
I really got intrigued by this show after comparisons were made to the ongoing family shake-up at Canadian telecom giant Rogers and all of the shenanigans going on there – with family members jockeying for control of a major firm with major implications.
It’s just kind of fun to watch the super-rich squirm when they don’t get their way. Even better when they’re fighting amongst themselves.
The show does show bits and pieces of inequality, especially cruelty towards the family’s servants, but Succession is more palace intrigue than capitalist critique, but instead of a kingdom up for grabs, it’s a boardroom.
The performances are excellent and the story has me clicking ‘play next episode’ a little too late into the evening. My only complaint would be that the episodes can run too long, almost an hour each, but I’m excited to see where this show goes next.
WILD WILD WEST
Finally, for this week I checked out another Netflix original film — The Harder They Fall, a western with an incredible, all-black cast.
I was excited to see how this would turn out, given Idris Elba, Regina King and Jonathan Majors are starring. While good, The Harder They Fall is a very slick, polished film on the outside, but hollow on the inside — with no overarching themes or nuance to match its well-shot exterior.
Written, directed and scored by Jeymes Samuel, the film is set in a fictional 19th century America where famous Black cowboys and outlaws from history have all been gathered in a Tarantino-style revenge story.
Nat Love (Jonathan Majors) and his gang reunite to seek out Rufus Buck (Idris Elba) after a dramatic breakout from prison. Buck killed Love’s father when he was a child, slashing a cross in Love’s forehead for good measure.
There are moments of glory here, including some really incredible shots that put other westerns to shame for their beauty. Regina King’s Treacherous Trudy Smith steals the show for me and perhaps should have replaced Buck as the big bad. It’s likely thanks to King’s incredible strength as an actress, but I could watch an entire movie just about Smith’s origins. She lights up the screen every time she appears.
There are well-choreographed fight scenes and some really funny moments, like Maysville, so whitewashed everything is cartoonish, chalky white, with a description in brackets ‘it’s a white town.’
The biggest issue with Harder They Fall is that despite all of these interesting characters with an equally interesting cast, I just didn’t find myself caring about anyone’s goals or agenda. Things just kind of happen and you’re along for the ride, with motives not super clear. It’s a feast for the eyes and ears, but not much else.