New movies to stream this week: ‘Red Notice,’ ‘Mayor Pete’ and more
‘Red Notice’ feels like the heist thriller/buddy comedy version of ‘Jungle Cruise,’ and not just because they both star dwayne Johnson. But this action-packed tale of an FBI agent (Johnson) who teams up with an art thief (Ryan Reynolds) to catch another art thief (Gal Gadot) is less a plausible, engaging story than an elaborate kind of cinematic theme-park ride. In this case, it’s one that globetrots from Italy to Russia to england to Spain and yadda yadda, as these three attractive people bicker and banter comically between fight and chase scenes. The heist part of the story – centering on the effort to steal three gilded eggs that once belonged to Cleopatra – isn’t especially thrilling. And the comedy – mostly driven by a PG-13 version of Reynolds’s deadpool patter – isn’t especially funny. There are, however, some twists and double-crossings along the way (some more clever than others), and a lightly unserious approach to the whole enterprise that tells you it’s OK not to care too deeply about anything you’re seeing. Case in point: Just as the film segues to an underground Nazi bunker in Argentina that looks like something out ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark,’ Johnson starts whistling the famous trumpet fanfare that accompanies almost everything Harrison Ford does in that 1981 film. Like most of ‘Red Notice,’ it’s an instantly recognisable, self-referential winkwink telling you: It’s only a movie. When Gadot delivers the line ‘I can’t wait to see what happens next,’ my first thought was ‘Well, that makes one of us’ – except she’s being sarcastic, too. PG-13. Available on Netflix; also playing in area theaters. Contains violence and action, some sexual references and strong language. 117 minutes.
Starting about a year before the Feb 3, 2020 Iowa caucuses vote, the affectionate documentary ‘Mayor Pete’ follows the longshot presidential primary campaign of Pete Buttigieg, former mayor of South Bend, Ind., and now the US transportation secretary. Like the recent documentary ‘Fauci,’ it’s a largely uncritical, even glowing portrait of Buttigieg as he tries to become the youngest and first openly gay US president. (To be fair, the film by Jesse Moss does address Buttigieg’s controversial handling of the fatal June 2019 shooting of a Black man by a White police officer in South Bend. But Buttigieg’s more general failure to connect with Black voters is mostly ignored.) Buttigieg, whose husband Chasten appears throughout the film, in interviews and in the background of the campaign, comes across a likably nerdy wonk. ‘I love PivotTables,’ he coos when he sees a colleague working on an excel spreadsheet. The film’s subject is, by his own admission, in careful control of his emotions most of the time.
His struggle to reconcile what he calls being ‘authentic’ with the desire of voters to get to know him better is one of the most interesting aspects of the film, but the sense of detachment that holds Mayor Pete, as he’s known, at arm’s length is also one of the documentary’s drawbacks.
R Available on Amazon. Contains strong language. 96 minutes.
Also streaming:
In ‘The drummer,’ danny Glover plays a Vietnam War veteran who has become a lawyer and political advocate for soldiers with mental illness. The San Francisco Chronicle calls it ‘wellmeaning but inert.’ Unrated. Available on demand. 90 minutes.
‘On Hold’ is a virtual concert documentary featuring the music of Young@Heart, a rotating chorus of senior citizens who perform covers of pop hits (and who were the focus of an acclaimed 2007 documentary). Unrated. Available on YouTube. 69 minutes. — The Washington Post